My career as a nurse anesthetist recently began at two plastic surgery centers, where I knew I'd face significant challenges in managing PONV. Rates of the relatively common...

Hetland ENT was overwhelmed by its volume of phone calls to and from patients each day. The Bismarck, N.D., surgery center tried an online patient portal, but only a small...

Postoperative nausea and vomiting is the last thing patients want to deal with when they're recovering from surgery. Waking up in the PACU feeling sick can ruin any good...

Think of patient satisfaction like a Yelp review. With technology and social media at everyone's fingertips, patients can easily look up how your facility and surgeons stack...

India Marshall underwent surgery on June 9 for the removal of benign bone growths in her forehead at the hands of surgeon Jewel Greywoode, MD, of Charlotte (N.C.)...

Even before the coronavirus crisis, operating a surgical facility in one of Alaska’s largest cities brought unique challenges. Patients from rural villages in the state’s rugged...

Post-operative nausea and vomiting is the last thing patients who've just had surgery need to deal with. Whether PONV is caused by anxiety, a bad reaction to anesthesia...

Healthier Eating Is Within Reach; Patients who optimize their pre-op nutrition are rewarded with better outcomes.

Avoid Costly Case Cancellations; A single pre-op phone call will help to keep your surgical schedule on track.

You could make a legitimate argument that the CDC’s labeling of pain as “the fifth vital sign” in 2001 did more harm than good and directly contributed to the current opioid...

Standardized Scripts for Every Surgery; Tailoring pill counts to procedure type will right-size your post-op opioid prescriptions.

No food or drink past midnight is slowly giving way to carbo-loading up to 2 hours before surgery. Fasting past midnight has been an unwritten Ordinance of the OR...

Every patient who walks into your facility expects to undergo successful surgery and receive compassionate care. In today’s competitive, consumer-driven healthcare...

Skin prepping is serious business at our facility. So serious, in fact, that the staff who prep patients before surgery wear different colored gowns than the rest of the OR...

The effects of single-shot nerve blocks and oral analgesics wear off soon after patients arrive home, leaving them in a significant amount of discomfort....

Patient-centered care is one of surgery's hottest buzzwords for a reason. The patients who walk into your facility expect excellent surgical care. That much is a given....

The surgeon had signed the patient's left side and was about to begin surgery, but something didn't feel right to the medical student in the room. "Can we check...

The winner of this year's OR Excellence Award for Patient Satisfaction goes to great lengths to get patients to fill out their post-op surveys and even greater lengths to...

The OR team at Lakeside Surgery Center in Omaha, Neb., works hard to manage patients’ post-op pain with an eye toward the addiction epidemic. “Our nation is in...

You might consider pressure injuries "out of sight, out of mind," or "not our problem." After all, you have no way of knowing you sent a patient home with a bed...