The dawn of hospital pay for quality has arrived. Hospitals have been reporting Surgical Care Improvement Project (SCIP) measures and other quality measures to Medicare for public display. Now starting in fiscal year 2013, how well they perform on 7 of the SCIP measures and 18 other measures will determine…

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Perceptions of turnover times by surgeons and anesthesiologists may be influenced more by a mental model of how team activity influences turnover times than by actual turnover times per se, a new study finds. Researchers from the State University of New York (SUNY) Upstate, Syracuse, and the University of Iowa,…

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How do we charge for invasive procedures performed at the bedside? What's the correct way to bill for patients who stay in the recovery room because of a lack of beds in the ICU? In this column, Keith Siddel, MBA, an expert on health care business operations, responds to questions…

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Wanted: Operating Room Scheduler. Salary $33,000. Operating room schedulers reserve space for each surgical procedure in a hospital or ambulatory surgery facility. They determine how long a procedure will take and what staff is necessary. OR schedulers work with anesthesiologists to assign one for each procedure, as well as OR…

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There are many reasons you may want to change how you organize or package an instrument set or the sterilization cycle for a set. Maybe the set weighs more than the 25 pounds recommended for containerized instrument sets. Perhaps the original container has sharp edges that tear the wrappers, and…

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Two new independent studies examine the performance of technologies for preventing retained sponges. In the first study, which tested data-matrix-coded sponges (SurgiCount Safety-Sponge System), none of the sponges were retained out of 1.86 million counted over 18 months. The study conducted at the Mayo Clinic Rochester (MCR) in Minnesota was…

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There's no shortage of literature on preventing orthopedic surgical site infections (SSIs). But how do you translate the evidence into practical strategies that are meaningful to clinicians on the front lines? A new guide aims to help. The Guide to the Prevention of Orthopedic Surgical Site Infections from the Association…

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To our readers, Chips, pastes, putties, gels, powders, wedges, DBM, BMP, and assorted kits—the list of bone allografts and substitutes is long and confusing. These biologic materials have a big impact on the OR budget, but they are more than just another line of surgical supplies. Biologics originate with a…

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When your OR is selecting allograft tissue, how do you know which federal regulations govern their safety? The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) uses a tiered approach to regulating these materials, explains Scott Brubaker, CTBS, chief policy officer for the American Association of Tissue Banks (AATB). Minimally processed tissue…

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Screening of tissue donors is a critical step in ensuring tissue safety. Screening is a complex, multidisciplinary process that begins every time a family says "yes" to the option of donation and ends when tissue is released for transplant. Tissue banks vary in what is considered a suitable donor. Regulating…

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These are examples of types of bone allograft products and purposes they serve. With the chart on page 12, this information can help OR teams determine where a new allograft product would fit into current inventory. Allograft cancellous chips Cancellous chips, a common nonstructural human allograft bone material, serve as…

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A surgeon has requested a new tissue graft not in the current inventory. From the company's literature, it's not easy to tell whether the tissue is similar to others already in stock. Decisions like these are challenging because tissue grafts come with a host of safety, clinical, and cost issues.…

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A special article on new Joint Commission expectations. By January 2012, the Joint Commission plans to raise the bar on hospital performance by using ORYX core measure data more directly in the survey process. In the 8 years since the Joint Commission launched ORYX, its performance measurement and improvement initiative,…

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OR business managers and others involved in the financial management of perioperative services will find a track specifically for them at the Managing Today's OR Suite Conference September 28-30, 2011, in Chicago. The OR Business Management Conference is being combined with Managing Today's OR Suite this year. The track features…

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The few ambulatory surgery centers (ASC) that use full electronic medical records (EMR) systems are not only ahead of their colleagues in the ASC industry. They are outpacing most hospitals as well. That does not mean others can safely ignore the trend. Before long, industry experts agree, health care organizations…

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