Outpatient Surgery Magazine's E-Weekly newsletter will not publish on Tuesday, Dec. 25, 2007, or Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2008. Happy holidays and a prosperous new year to our readers.

The Georgia Board of Community Health voted last week to classify general surgery as a single specialty, paving the way for general surgeons to own and operate outpatient surgery centers. Single-specialty groups in Georgia are exempt from applying for a state certificate of need before building a new facility. The board also approved a resolution asking the Georgia General Assembly to create legislation that would require exempted owners of ambulatory surgery centers to report their charitable care utilization to the state. Both resolutions could go into effect as early as next month. Hospital advocates, however, are expected to challenge the ruling's legality.

Last week's developments escalated an already heated debate between Georgia's general surgeons and the state's hospital groups. Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue called for an overhaul of the state's healthcare regulations during the 2007 General Assembly, but his overhaul bill failed because of hospital efforts.

The Georgia BCH then decided to rule on the CON portion of the overhaul bill. Georgia's House Health and Human Services committee warned that it would vote to block efforts by the BCH to change rules governing ambulatory surgery centers, claiming that only the General Assembly has jurisdiction over such matters. The BCH countered that it has the authority to change CON laws and voted unanimously to do so.

"We certainly expect the hospital community to mount a legal challenge," says Kevin Bloye, spokesman for the Georgia Hospital Association. "Which organization leads that charge remains to be seen." Mr. Bloye says the BCH ruling didn't surprise Georgia's hospital groups. They remain steadfast in their beliefs that the board does not have the legal right to alter the state's CON regulations. "We know that there's a lot more work to be done on this issue."

The tools of the nursing trade may pose hazards to nurses' health through repeated exposure, even in low levels, according to a recent national survey of healthcare personnel.

Once-a-week exposure to everyday surgical supplies such as sterilizing and disinfecting solutions, hand hygiene products, anesthetic gases and latex gloves may be associated with increased risks of cancer, asthma, miscarriage and birth defects among healthcare workers, according to the Environmental Working Group, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit research organization.

The accumulating effects of environmental factors - including medication residues, radiation and escaped mercury from medical devices - have not been thoroughly studied, says Jane Houlihan, the group's vice president for research. The group concedes that its online survey of 1,552 nurses from 50 states was informal and not statistically rigorous. Regardless, the danger is real and cautions should be established, says Ms. Houlihan.

"This survey is a call to action for nurses to demand the use of safer products and protective measures to control exposures to hazardous agents in the workplace," says Anna Gilmore Hall, RN, executive director of the international awareness organization Health Care Without Harm, in a statement.

"For many of the toxic chemicals in hospitals there are safer alternatives or safer processes," says Barbara Sattler, RN, DrPH, FAAN, a professor at the University of Maryland School of Nursing and director of its Environmental Health Education Center, in a statement. "We must make these healthier choices for the sake of our patients, nurses and all hospital employees."

A body contouring gift card for the holidays? Yes, the American Society of Bariatric Plastic Surgeons is offering $1,000 and $5,000 gift cards for people who've experienced significant weight loss following intense dieting or bariatric surgery and need cosmetic surgery to tighten large areas of sagging skin.

The popularity in gastric bypass surgery has sparked a new trend in plastic surgery: body contouring after massive weight loss. There were about 150,000 body-contouring procedures in 2006, according to the ASBPS.

In most parts of the nation, a total body lift averages about $30,000. In some cases, insurance companies cover part of the cost of body contouring surgery, such as a documented case of overhanging skin causing rashes or fungal infections. However, many payors consider these cases cosmetic and not reconstructive.

"An ASBPS gift card is like a ticket that allows a person to complete the journey that began with bariatric surgery," says Edward Domanskis, MD, founder of ASBPS, adding that all surgeon members of ASBPS will accept the gift cards.