Adverse events occur in the best of ORs, but, of course, the goal is to prevent them whenever possible. One strategy used in surgical services at Saint Luke’s Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri, is to turn staff into “legal eagles” who go beyond reporting adverse events after they occur to…

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The number of nurse practitioners is expected to double by 2025, and the need for surgical first assistants is growing as residents’ work hours are reduced and surgeon assistants are eliminated to cut costs. This situation offers a great opportunity for advanced practice perioperative nurses. A double certification of nurse…

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Hospital safety scores released by the Leapfrog Group on April 29 show a 6.3% average improvement since 2012. Performance at almost a third of hospitals has improved at least 10% since 2012, but some hospitals’ scores have dropped. And with medical errors tied to more than 400,000 deaths per year…

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The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on April 30 issued its proposed rule that would update FY 2015 Medicare payment polices and rates for inpatient stays at general acute care and long-term care hospitals. The proposed rule will increase the payment rate to general acute care hospitals by…

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“Each year, diagnostic errors result in the deaths of an estimated 44,000 to 80,000 patients, and many thousands die because of teamwork and communication errors affecting their care or because they do not receive necessary evidence-based interventions,” according to an article published online last year in JAMA. No one would…

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More than 7 million Americans are living with a prosthetic knee or hip, and there is a growing incidence of adults younger than 65 undergoing these procedures, researchers reported at the 2014 annual meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons in March. Among those over 50 years of age,…

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In many surgery departments, schedule management is a daily struggle. Staff work hard to manage case requests, juggle resources, and respond to changes, but errors, inefficiencies, and general frustration persist. The results are frequent case delays and cancellations, low utilization, high costs, low staff morale, and poor surgeon satisfaction. The…

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The steam sterilization process is complex and includes a number of important steps: decontamination, preparation and packaging, sterilization, quality control, sterile storage, and product distribution. The effectiveness of this process cannot be determined by inspection or testing of each product, and because sterility assurance is a probability function, it must…

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Loopholes in supply contracts can wreak havoc with a supply budget, but attention to detail and proper terminology can help OR managers take charge instead of being charged unnecessary fees. “Not managing your agreement will cost you 12% to 25% of the spend or 100% of any savings achieved,” Girard…

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Computers and computer-driven devices have transformed the way healthcare is delivered, and use of the technology has led to greater efficiency, error reduction, and the ability to perform some previously impossible procedures. However, it is not always easy to incorporate computer tools into traditional activities such as quality tracking and…

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