Editor's Note This study from the University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, finds that postoperative opioid prescriptions written by advanced practice clinicians (APCs), defined as nurse practitioners and physician assistants, had higher total dosages compared with those written by surgeons. A total of 628,197 surgical procedures involving 581,387 adults…

Read More

Editor's Note This study led by epidemiologist Cori L. Ofstead, MSPH, and associates, St Paul, Minnesota, found visible damage and residue or debris in 100% of 25 processed flexible endoscopes, using a new visual inspection program that included magnification and borescopes. Fully processed endoscopes were examined twice during a 2-month…

Read More

Editor's Note The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), on December 20, identified the recall by Arrow International, LLC, subsidiary of Teleflex, Inc, of its Arrow AutoCAT 2 and AC3 intra-aortic balloon pumps (IABPs) as Class I, the most serious. IABPs are used in patients having cardiac and non-cardiac surgery, and…

Read More

Editor's Note This international sleep study led by researchers at the University of Bergen, Norway, finds that shift/night work was not associated with an increased risk of COVID-19, but if shift/night workers became infected, they had more severe disease. The analysis included 7,141 workers from 15 countries and 4 continents.…

Read More

Editor's Note The Joint Commission announced on December 14 that it will be eliminating the term “licensed independent practitioner” from its critical access hospital and hospital programs, effective February 19, 2023. The updated terminology is consistent with that used by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Conditions of Participation…

Read More

Takeaways Many OR managers said they were overdue for a survey by The Joint Commission because of the pandemic. The Joint Commission is said to be 3,000 surveys behind. More checklists are being used by surveyors, which are available in The Joint Commission’s Perspectives and EC News newsletters. New in…

Read More

Takeaways Natural language processing (NLP) may be helpful for predicting surgical outcomes and can facilitate more robust research. NLP comes with challenges that include potential for bias, costs, technology and terminology barriers, and the need to adapt to new ways of thinking. Before purchasing products that use NLP, OR leaders…

Read More

Nursing was once the most stable profession—that was a point driven home by several sessions at the 2022 OR Manager Conference. As one can imagine, the current staffing shortage was the main topic discussed throughout the conference back in October. However, while the conversation did not shy away from affirming…

Read More

Recent analysis provided by the Association of Medical Device Reprocessors (AMDR) indicates that US hospitals could save up to $2.28 billion a year by maximizing the use of reprocessed single-use medical devices. According to the report, in 2020, US hospitals saved $372 million just by reprocessing single-use medical devices, as…

Read More

Two major challenges that perioperative leaders are facing today are labor and supply costs. These two areas also happen to be the largest and second largest expense categories at most hospitals, making the challenges even more pronounced. What actions can leaders put in place to ensure that clinical staff are…

Read More