Avoid using medication containers with barcodes imprinted horizontally on rounded surfaces because they could result in scanning failures that compromise patient safety, warns the Institute of Safe Medication Practices (ISMP)....

It's important to include family members in the care of their loved ones on the day of surgery. Family members provide vital information about patients and help to ensure discharge instructions are followed, which prevents...

The transition from pandemic slowdown to high-volume hustle can be difficult for staff who have been through a lot both professionally and personally. To help boost morale, look for easy-to-implement and creative ways...

Last winter, our hospital’s surgical department closed and the entire outpatient surgery team was displaced to work in COVID-19 units. To boost spirits and morale when we returned to the OR, I planned a Step into Spring challenge...

My partner and I offer free phone consultations for prospective patients to provide them with a timely diagnosis of their health conditions and schedule the treatments they need. That’s especially important when dealing with...

Endoscope care guidelines generally agree that dirty scopes can sit for an hour before reprocessing begins. Any longer, and bioburden is difficult to remove. To let reprocessing techs know how long scopes...

Hopefully, we’ll never experience another pandemic and mandatory shutdown of elective surgery again. But if we do, we now know exactly how to keep our staff busy with meaningful work while they wait to reenter the OR....

If it’s a chore to get everyone on board with helping to keep your facility clean, schedule “cleaning parties” during times when no surgeries are scheduled. During these dedicated cleaning days at our eye surgery center,...

When our management company instituted a day of service held on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, we jumped into action to see how we could support our local community. Two of our nurses, Patty Boyle and Dunbar Salin, worked with...

Throughout my career as a perioperative director and surgery center administrator, I've developed information packets that inform my teams about what accreditation surveyors might look for and ask about. I eventually thought...

AORN guidelines stipulate that hair should be clipped around surgical sites to reduce the risk of infection. To make sure pre-op staff properly clip the right areas, we filled a binder with procedure-specific pages that indicate...

We’ve heard some wonderful stories about facilities that repurposed blue wrap to make sleeping mats and blankets for the homeless, and wanted to do something similar. Our blue wrap was too small to repurpose in that capacity,...

Our hospital used to have an issue with surgical team members wearing scrubs out of the facility, washing them at home and wearing them back to work, habits that went against proper laundering protocols and prevented us...

Have you ever noticed a colleague not following hand hygiene protocols or forgetting to wipe down equipment with the proper cleaning products? It can be uncomfortable to call them out, especially in front of a patient. We use...

Many nursing students aren’t afforded a surgical rotation or clinical observation of an operating room during their schooling, so we created A Day in the Life of an OR Nurse program to showcase how rewarding working in...

We keep an emergency flip chart at the front desk of our ASC that’s filled with easy-to-follow emergency response protocols. We also conduct true-to-life safety drills to make sure our staff is ready for nearly any situation...

WIn the midst of the pandemic, we looked for a way to safely maximize the number of staff members who could hang out together during breaks and lunch. We found portable sneeze guards on Amazon — they cost less...

During appointments in our eye clinic, staff document the music preferences of patients in their charts. On the day of surgery, pre-op nurses refer to the charts — or ask patients about their favorite artists and songs...

We place ID and allergy bands on the ankles of cataract patients to improve our visualization of the vital information during safety time outs. Instead of pulling back covers and drapes to locate the bands on patients' wrists,...

After our state halted elective procedures last spring, returning to surgery and assuring our patients that the center functioned in the safest possible manner took a lot of planning — and no small amount of innovation...