Regulations/Legal
ACS updates standards for children’s surgical care
Editor's Note The American College of Surgeons (ACS) announced the release of the second version of its Optimal Resources for Children’s Surgical Care manual on July 14 at the 2021 ACS Quality and Safety Conference. The updated standards include principles on hospital resources, quality improvement and safety processes, data collection,…
Researchers raise the alarm on splashing during reprocessing--Part 2
Part 1 of this two-part series discussed the splashes and the potential for exposure to pathogens that personnel face daily in sterile processing and endoscopy departments, as well as the current guidelines and strategies for reducing exposures (OR Manager, July 2021, pp 1, 9-11, 15). These risks were derived from…
Educate to mitigate workplace violence in healthcare--Part 1
Increased tensions during the COVID-19 pandemic have contributed to a spate of violent incidents, many of them directed at healthcare workers (HCWs). About 20% of respondents to a National Nurses United survey in late 2020 of more than 15,000 US registered nurses reported an increase in on-the-job violence caused by…
Editorial
The Joint Commission on June 18 issued prepublication standards for its New and Revised Workplace Violence Prevention Requirements, which will apply to all Joint Commission-accredited hospitals starting January 1, 2022. Revisions range from some wording changes in existing requirements to the addition of new Elements of Performance (EP) within certain…
COVID-19 driving the move to regional anesthesia
Cancellations of some surgical procedures during the COVID-19 pandemic and case rescheduling have been a major focus for perioperative leaders. But changes are also occurring in anesthesia practices. For many surgical procedures, the use of regional anesthesia or nerve blocks, coupled with light sedation, is reported to double if the…
New term clarifies instrument point-of-use treatment
What exactly is required to prepare instruments for transport to the decontamination room after a surgical procedure? Point-of-use cleaning, which may also be referred to as precleaning, has been used to describe instrument preparation at the point of use after a surgical procedure. But both point-of-use cleaning and precleaning have…
CDC: More than 93,000 people died from drug overdoses last year
Editor's Note New provisional data released July 14 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that more than 93,331 people died from drug overdoes in the US last year. The nearly 30% rise from 2019 was mostly triggered by COVID-19 pandemic-related stressors, treatment inaccessibility, and proliferation of…
Acceptability of COVID-19 vaccinations among adolescents, parents
Editor's Note In this study by researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is based on surveys conducted just before the expanded availability of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for adolescents aged 12-15 years, about half of unvaccinated adolescents and their parents reported not intending for or being uncertain…
CDC updates guidance for COVID-19 prevention in K-12 schools
Editor's Note The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on July 9 updated its guidance for COVID-19 prevention in K-12 schools and urged schools to fully reopen in the fall even if they can’t comply with all the recommendations on physical distancing and mask-wearing. The agency says if maintaining…
Joint Commission issues Quick Safety on diversity
Editor's Note The Joint Commission, on July 13, issued a new “Quick Safety Issue 60: Understanding the needs of diverse populations in your community.” To address the health and well-being of diverse populations in US communities, hospitals and medical centers can use the following safety actions and strategies: Requiring leadership…
Free Daily News
- Back to Business: Budgeting for Sustainable Staffing Models in the OR
- Healthcare job gain in August offset by losses in federal government, other industries
- AHA study: HOPD Medicare patients are poorer, sicker, more rural than those seen in physician offices
- ACS, Lifesaving Technologies launch nationwide effort to expand bleeding control readiness
- Minimally invasive ICH surgery evacuates clot fast but fails to improve 6-month outcomes
- Rural hospitals face crisis under OBBBA as experts call for cohesive reform
- AMA urges health systems to act now on AI governance
- Suicide Prevention Month: Hospitals prepare for new The Joint Commission suicide prevention goal, effective 2026
- Survey: Perioperative leaders adapt to supply strain, staffing pressure, ASC growth
- Gait retraining eases knee osteoarthritis pain as effectively as medication, can delay knee surgery