When patients are recovering from intense surgeries at home and something unexpected or concerning occurs, they need to know whether what they’re experiencing is a common-but-alarming natural byproduct of their surgical journey...

After much work, communication and trial and error, the staff at Eye 35 ASC in Schertz, Texas, have fine-tuned and standardized their surgical packs to match their exact needs....

When OrthoArizona recently decided to hold a food drive, it pulled out all the stops. Rather than limiting the effort to one facility helping a single community, it placed donation boxes at each of its more than two dozen locations in...

How do you get kids comfortable with the idea of going under the knife? You give them a glimpse into the operating room, making sure there are plenty of teddy bears to go around....

At Seven Hills ASC & Cath Lab in Henderson, Nev., nurses held a roundtable discussion to determine specific items that would be helpful in the case of an evacuation or emergency event....

Each year, OAM Surgery Center at MidTowne in Grand Rapids, Mich., holds an education day for staff to ensure they are compliant with CMS and AAAHC requirements. If you’re expecting boring stories of clinicians sitting in classrooms watching dry...

At Eye 35, a busy ASC in Schertz, Texas, the staff strives to keep their patients calm and any excess paperwork to a minimum. “Some medical records such as medical history and medication reconciliation for the patient’s next surgery are held until their next visit....

Most facilities communicate clearly with patients about what they are likely to experience perioperatively when receiving nerve blocks, but what happens when they return to their homes after discharge?...

The patient care coordinators at Urology Health Surgery Center in Fort Washington, Pa., try to make sure their patients leave with smiles on their faces. To do this, they created a wall of laughs that is covered in silly “dad jokes” to...

A lot of information is presented to patients during the pre-op visit, and it’s nearly impossible for them to retain everything they learn. However, one thing you don’t want to fall through the cracks is information on the risks...

When patients are screened for procedures at St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center in Lewiston, Maine, nurses ask if they’ve recently run out of food before they had money to buy more, or if they’ve been worried about that possibility....

Nancy Yen Shipley, MD (@_NancyMD), an orthopedic surgeon at Multnomah Orthopedic Clinic in Portland, Ore., recently posted on #OrthoTwitter a unique hack she developed when handling a supply shortage....

Communication issues led to confusion for some Orange County Digestive Center patients who didn’t want the person who picked them up and drove them home to know the results of their procedure....

The Medical Play Distraction Therapy program at Shriners Children’s Lexington (SCL), Ky., doesn’t end when pediatric patients are discharged. Parents are instructed to contact the recreational therapist who worked with...

Milton Lee (Chip) Routt Jr., MD, has always preferred to put pen to bedsheet. He has been drawing detailed illustrations of anatomy to facilitate his teachings to residents for decades. “The bedsheets of pre-op beds are great canvases...

Every surgical provider knows what a warm blanket can do for patient satisfaction. But why limit yourself to blankets? At Advanced CardioVascular Solutions in Oklahoma City, every patient who comes through its doors receives...

The national company that supplied Lakeland (Fla.) Surgical & Diagnostic Center with food and drinks was experiencing shortages and found itself unable to provide the facility with crackers for patients, diet soda for surgeons...

Teams in sterile processing departments are often tasked to do more with less, especially when surgeons push to perform more cases than the instrument inventory can handle and reprocessing techs are pressured...

The Healthcare Sterile Processing Association (HSPA) recently hosted a webinar during which three guest speakers discussed strategies to maintain individual positivity and enhance the culture of the workgroup. One of...

Cynthia Hawks, BSN, RN, CNOR, CSSM, surgical clinical coordinator for neurology and ENT at Memorial Hermann The Woodlands Medical Center in Shenandoah, Texas, has had a copy of the April 2020 issue of Outpatient Surgery...