.svg?sfvrsn=be606e78_3)
Inside Our Pressure Injury Prevention Program
Inside Our Pressure Injury Prevention Program; It's been 2 years and counting since a patient has suffered skin-related harm during surgery.
Leave Nothing Behind
Leave Nothing Behind; Combining scanning technology with a meticulous manual count is your best defense against retained objects.
Patient Warming Pitfalls to Avoid
Patient Warming Pitfalls to Avoid; One of surgery's most basic patient safety practices is riskier than you might think.
Ideas That Work: Nightmare Scenarios
Before critical procedures like our high-volume thyroidectomies, we gather a multidisciplinary team to play a game of "What Could Go Wrong?" in which we discuss...
Ideas That Work: A Better Understanding
At our ASC, 15% to 20% of our patients speak Spanish as their primary language. For many years, we've partnered with East Tennessee State University's (ETSU) Language...
Ideas That Work: Safe Rooms
How will you protect your staff if there's an active shooter in your facility? We've trained our staff using the FBI-endorsed Run, Hide, Fight protocol. If staff can't safely evacuate...
Thinking of Buying... Video Monitors
There's a universe of surgical monitors out there of varying sizes, features and functionality. Where do you start in evaluating your options? As a healthcare equipment...
2019 OR Excellence Awards
We're thrilled to introduce this year's OR Excellence Award Winners, a group of surgical leaders who represent facilities excelling at performing safe, environmentally friendly...
12 Tips for Instrument Care and Cleaning
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...
Ideas That Work: Root Cause Analysis
On those rare occasions when a patient contracts a surgical site infection, we want to preserve as much evidence in the case as possible so we'll be better able to find...
Patient Safety: Solving Problems That Were Large in Scope
Flexible endoscopes are notoriously difficult to clean, putting unsuspecting patients at risk of being exposed to infections by unsuspecting physicians. After a serious flexible...
Employee Safety: Banding Together to Breathe Easier
Baptist Hospital in Miami, Fla., this year’s winner of the 2019 OR Excellence Award for Employee Safety, is well on its way to clearing the OR air of surgical smoke thanks...
Ideas That Work: Utility Players
We've shaved some precious minutes off our turnover times by creating a "runner" position to help the RN, surgical tech and the 1 to 2 instrument techs we staff for each...
Staffing: Beating the Block Time Blues
Two words that strike fear in the heart of every OR manager: open time. That, of course, is when your ORs sit silent and empty while it's standing-room only in the staff...
Financial Management: Taming a Tangled Suture Inventory
There were boxes of suture hiding everywhere at AdventHealth Surgery Center Lenexa (Kan.), some opened and some outdated, some stored on the big suture cart...
Patient Satisfaction: Care Through the Patients' Eyes
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...
Behind Closed Doors: Disorientation
When I'm Queen of the World, new-job orientation will be department-specific. I don't know a thing about ICU or ER, nor do I need to, yet I just endured an incredibly,,,
Business Advisor: Make Your Preference Cards a Current Affair
If your surgeons have too few or too many of the instruments and supplies they need for a case, your preference cards are inaccurate and outdated. It's too few if your...
Infection Prevention: Stepping Up to Prevent SSIs
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...
Ergonomics in the OR: Protecting Your Surgeons
Surgeons come in all shapes, sizes and sexes with individual ergonomic needs. Those instruments designed for the burly 6-foot-6 surgeon who played middle linebacker...