Editor's Note This year, the OR Manager Conference promises playbooks attendees can put to work the day they return home. The event, being held in Anaheim on October 28–30, targets the system-level goals perioperative leaders are accountable for: capacity, cost, culture, and safety across multi-site enterprises. Attendees will get concrete…

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With the explosion of GLP-1–based therapies for type 2 diabetes and weight loss, perioperative nursing teams, especially in the preoperative and postanesthesia care areas, need to be fluent in recognizing these medications. Some patients may arrive on these agents—or even novel oral GLP-1s—and the physiologic effects, especially delayed gastric emptying,…

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Editor's Note This October 28–30, perioperative leaders will gather in Anaheim, California, for the OR Manager Conference—the only event designed exclusively for OR, ASC, PACU, and SPD managers and directors. More than a conference, it is an immersive experience that blends education, networking, and practical solutions to help perioperative leaders…

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Editor's Note Allowing older surgical patients to keep dentures, glasses, and hearing aids until anesthesia and restoring them immediately afterward significantly lowered postoperative delirium (POD) rates, according to a study published in BMC Geriatrics on August 30. The prospective before-and-after trial followed patients aged 70 and older undergoing hip fracture…

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Editor's Note Patients with BMI 40 or higher had similar 24-hour and 1–90 day complication rates to lower-BMI patients after primary total joint arthroplasty (TJA) performed at an academic ambulatory surgery center (ASC), an August 25 article from The Journal of Arthroplasty reports. The study retrospectively analyzed 2,367 primary THA…

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Editor's Note A multidisciplinary quality improvement effort at Vanderbilt University Medical Center sharply reduced response times to post-anesthesia care unit (PACU) emergencies, demonstrating a model that other hospitals could replicate, OR Management News September 1 reports. By combining education, clear role identification, standardized anesthesiologist notification, and recurring mock code drills,…

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Editor's Note Preliminary results from a nearly million-case review reveal that perioperative pulmonary aspiration, while feared, is rare but potentially deadly. According to a February 4 Anesthesiology News report, researchers found an overall incidence of 1 in 5,572 anesthesia cases, with aspiration-related mortality at about 1 in 67,000. As detailed…

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Editor's Note A recent article in AORN Journal underscores the need for vigilance and thorough documentation to manage postoperative mental status changes and prevent harm to both patients and staff. As detailed in the article, cognitive disturbances such as delirium and agitation can complicate recovery after surgery. Delirium is characterized…

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Editor's Note A robust scheduling model can significantly improve OR efficiency and stability when surgery and recovery times are unpredictable, according to research published in the journal Mathematics. Using a Genetic Algorithm for Robust Scheduling (GARS), the authors demonstrate a practical and computationally efficient method for minimizing makespan across a…

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An estimated 22 million Americans were believed to have obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) in 2019, according to data cited in a February 2019 article published by OR Manager. At that time, up to 80% of cases were undiagnosed, and 30% to 40% of the surgical patient population was believed to…

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