Pittsburgh, August 23, 2018 -- A paper coauthored by Nitin Agarwal, MD; Robert Friedlander, MD, and Daniel Wecht, MD, entitled “Reducing Surgical Infections and Implant Costs via a Novel Paradigm of Enhanced Physician Awareness” has been selected as the Socioeconomics, Health Policy, & Law Paper of the Year by the Congress of Neurological Surgeons.
The paper, published in the May edition of Neurosurgery, investigated the effects of increased physician awareness on infection incidence and surgical device cost containment.
The authors concluded “physician awareness of infections and surgical supply costs at a single department of neurological surgery not only successfully decreased infection incidence but also resulted in significant cost savings. Consequently, awareness should be considered as an effective alternative to mandatory intervention when attempting to reduce health care risk and contain cost in surgical patients. Given the magnitude of national expenditures in surgical implants, achieving even a 10% savings (less than achieved in this report) would result in significant savings in health care cost.”
The CNS Paper of the Year Awards spotlight papers, published in Neurosurgery from July 2017 to June 2018, deemed most impactful in six select subspecialties.
The authors will present their paper at the CNS annual meeting, October 10, in Houston and will be recognized on the main stage during the meeting’s General Scientific Session.