Safety/Quality
Restructuring circulator nurse role aids turnover
Second of 3 articles on applying Lean management to turnover time. Efforts to weed waste from turnover time quickly took root in one 10-OR department. Within about a month after OR staff and certified registered nurse anesthetists (CRNAs) embraced the new process, turnover time decreased from about 26 minutes…
Visual cues help to improve the turnover process
Third of 3 articles on applying Lean management to turnover time. Creating a “visual workplace” is a principle in Lean management. Visual cues have been one solution for improving turnover time at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia. In a visual workplace, the goal is to make waste, problems,…
Lean boosts OR morale, productivity
Lean management in a teaching hospital’s otolaryngology OR improved efficiency, morale, and finances in a study from the University of Michigan (U-M), Ann Arbor. After 18 months: • turnover time (from exit of one patient to arrival of the next) fell by nearly one-third to 29 minutes • turnaround time…
New imaging modalities raise the bar for safety
Since the days of the first rudimentary radiographs, radiation safety has been a concern in the OR, but that concern has risen as the number of hybrid ORs and procedures with imaging has risen. “The level of image guidance in the OR, whether it’s radiographic or fluoroscopy, has become highly…
Balancing staff productivity with open OR time
With hospitals under ever greater economic pressure, perioperative managers are expected to hew closely to staffing productivity targets, meaning they must match staffing as closely as possible to the hours of surgery actually performed. They’re also expected to grow surgical volume. Hospitals’ revenue depends on it. To grow volume, ORs…
Data for benchmarking your OR's performance
Hospitals are facing stiff economic winds. They are challenged by shrinking reimbursement from Medicare and Medicare, even as more patients will be covered by these publicly funded programs. Perioperative managers and directors are under pressure to make the most of their department’s resources. You’re being asked to measure every aspect…
Preventing retained items: Time to consider technology?
Technology is starting to take its place as a supplement to manual counts in the effort to prevent retained surgical items (RSIs). RSIs persist despite the emphasis many ORs have placed on tightening their manual counting methods. Recent reports from California are an example of the challenge ORs are up…
Hernia, total joint volumes down
Three elective surgical procedures saw declines in early 2009 for a group of facilities participating in the OR Benchmarks Collaborative. Hernia repair and total hip and total knee replacement volumes were down in January through July compared with the same period the year before. Declines were: Hernia repair: minus 7%…
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