A plan for fixing sterile reprocessing
Every morning when the central service (CS) staff arrived for work, they were greeted by a jumble of unprocessed sets left from the previous day. There were service problems with the OR, and morale was low. “When the first shift came in, there was a never-ending pile of sets. They…
A Lean process for OR technology
With tighter budgets and long lists of technology requests, organizations need a fair and systematic way to set priorities. At Virginia Mason Medical Center (VMMC) in Seattle, where Lean manufacturing principles are part of the culture, it was natural to apply Lean to the review of new surgical supplies and…
What is the OR's role in SSI surveillance?
Under the Joint Commission's National Patient Safety Goal 07.05.01 on preventing surgical site infections (SSIs), organizations are required to measure their SSI rates. They also need to provide process and outcome measures, such as SSI rates, to key stakeholders; for example, surgeons and senior administrators. Perioperative nurses play an important…
Total joints: Toward zero infections
The Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) in New York City has one of the highest volumes of total joint replacements in the world. It also has one of the lowest surgical site infection (SSI) rates. The hospital, which performs about 8,000 joint replacements a year, was recently commended by the…
Nominate OR Manager of the Year
Each year at the Managing Today's OR Suite conference, a perioperative manager or director is named OR Manager of the Year. This year's conference will be September 29 to October 1 in Orlando, Florida. The OR Manager of the Year will receive an expense-paid trip to the meeting, including airfare,…
What's the value of preop bathing?
Preoperative baths or showers to prevent surgical infections have played to mixed reviews. Enthusiasm was dampened after a systematic Cochrane review in 2006, updated in 2009, examined 7 trials and found no clear evidence of a benefit for bathing or showering with chlorhexidine gluconate (CHG) over a placebo. Preop bathing…
Tips for leading a practice change
A new study provides strong evidence that surgical skin prep with chlorhexidine gluconate (CHG)-alcohol is superior to povidone-iodine scrub in preventing surgical site infections (related article). What if most of the surgeons in your OR use povidone-iodine? How can you introduce the new evidence to the surgeons and convince them…
Keynote: What would Florence do?
When did the health care crisis get to be a crisis? Was it last year with the capital crunch and reimbursement cutbacks? Was it the evolution of managed care and corporate medicine? Does it go back to when Medicare was established? What would Florence Nightingale say about the health care…
Free Daily News
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