Working in the ICU comes as a culture shock to surgical professionals who have grown accustomed to the immediate gratification of caring for patients where successful...

Nasal decolonization should be part of a multifaceted approach to stop the transmission of the new coronavirus in surgical settings and to protect staff and...

Endoscopes must be long, narrow and flexible to do their jobs. This also makes them extremely delicate and notoriously difficult to clean. They can break in transport from the procedure room to the sterile processing area and can wear down from daily rounds of high-level disinfection....

Imagine a central sterile processing department that looks like a high-tech manufacturing facility, with employees working alongside advanced machines with...

The lead aprons, skirts and vests your staff wear to protect themselves from radiation exposure are an often-ignored aspect of infection prevention protocols. Following these...

The coronavirus has ground outpatient surgeries to a halt. As the nationwide response to the outbreak enters its second month, every possible healthcare resource is being...

There's always the possibility that a patient with an active infection will arrive at your facility for surgery. To prevent SSIs and stop the spread of multi-drug resistant...

Infection Prevention: You've Got a Friend in SPD; A buddy system improves the effectiveness of instrument care.

Nasal Antisepsis Done Right; 4 tips to stop staph where it lurks

Infection Prevention: 4 Ways to Wipe Away Surgical Site Infections; Follow this practical advice to ward off the threat of SSIs at your facility

A large hospital had so many case carts full of trays backed up during the day they struggled to turn around instrument sets in less than 24 hours. Within 6 months,...

Endophthalmitis, an infection involving the entire eye, is a rare complication of invasive procedures such as cataract surgery and intravitreal injections. Post-cataract...

Simple solutions are almost always best. No one will accuse your facility of providing groundbreaking surgical care if you make sure patients clean their skin before...

You can scrub every inch of an OR until your elbows ache, but the minute someone steps into that clean space the air becomes contaminated simply because of...

The essential elements of proper endoscope care begin well before the notoriously difficult-to-clean devices are ready for high-level disinfection. The following protocols...

When we experienced an uncharacteristic increase in SSIs starting in August 2018 — 9 infections over the next 6 months — we assumed the spike was related to opening...

Last fall, Saint Francis Health System in Tulsa, Okla., made a big push to improve point-of-use instrument cleaning by posting a new regimen for staff to follow...

Benjamin Franklin was right: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Pretty sure Mr. Franklin wasn’t talking about caring for surgical instruments, but we do...

Has your OR staff lost its way when it comes to pretreating instruments at the point of use before sending them out for reprocessing? Have they never even known the way?...

The best defense for battling surgical site infections is a good offense. And part of a good offensive game plan is to make sure your OR nurses understand the importance...