There is no OR nurse university. Nurses can’t go away to college, pay tuition, and learn to be a perioperative nurse. “Faced with a staffing shortfall, how are we going to deal with this? How are they going to learn and acquire skills needed to work in the OR?” These…

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Analytics is a buzzword in today’s healthcare world, but behind the buzz is a very real tool. If used appropriately, analytics can help OR managers achieve improvements in stubborn problems such as turnover time. But OR leaders must first understand analytics principles before applying them in their management practice. Analytics…

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Perioperative nursing needs a standardized educational path for entry into the profession, according to James X. Stobinski, PhD, RN, CNOR (cover story), yet there’s no single entity for taking charge and making that happen. Stobinski lays out some options for how to achieve the education and competency needed for the…

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Pressure ulcers affect up to 3 million adults in the US each year, according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Surgical patients are at high risk to develop pressure ulcers because of immobility during long procedures and anesthesia that blocks sensitivity to pain and pressure. Estimates of treatment…

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Relations between the OR and the sterile processing department (SPD) are not always smooth. OR staff need timely, accurate instrument trays that meet the highest standards of safety. Anything short of 100% performance leads to complaints about the SPD. But many OR staff members do not appreciate the challenges faced…

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Instruments that are still damp or wet after being sterilized cannot be placed in storage. The moisture that remains on or inside of a package can create a pathway for microorganisms to travel from the outside to the inside of the package. Moisture may be in the form of visible…

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Clearing a patient for surgery is no easy feat, and a completely paper-based workflow can be very inefficient. Switching to a paperless tracking system has cut labor and costs in the preanesthesia screening services (PASS) department at Sinai Hospital, LifeBridge Health, Baltimore, and nurse leaders there hope to integrate the…

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Disinfection robots are first on the ECRI Institute’s 2015 Top 10 Hospital C-Suite Watch List, which includes new and emerging technologies healthcare providers should know about. Hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) are a persistent problem, and a recent study supports the efficacy of disinfection robots. However, the technology is expensive, and experts…

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Patients come first. That is the brief, yet insightful, first principle for the ambulatory surgery industry: Give patients a safe, cost-effective, convenient, and attractive place to have their elective surgery, and profits and career satisfaction will follow. Well, perhaps, but it is all too easy to become involved in regulations,…

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