Ensuring safe, quality care requires precise alignment among inventory levels, delivery schedules, storage solutions, and every other element of the supply chain. A single missing piece of this puzzle—say, a delayed shipment or a storage issue—can disrupt the entire picture. Making the pieces fit can be difficult for any healthcare…

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CEO Karen Franco, MBA, spent years struggling to fill surgical technologist (ST) positions at Pacific Surgery Center in Poulsbo, Washington, due to a lack of viable training options. Nearly 1,400 miles away, Deb Braly, RN, a nurse educator in the surgery department of San Luis Valley Regional Medical Center in…

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Immersed in texts, apps, QR codes, and streaming videos, we live in a digital world. And yet, healthcare has been slow to catch up. Most nurses and other staff still hand out packets of paper and relay information verbally, whether in person or over the phone. It does not have…

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Editor's Note Implementing a multimodal analgesia-based enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) protocol significantly reduced both intraoperative opioid administration and postoperative opioid prescriptions in cardiac surgery patients, according to a January 5 report in Anesthesiology News. The findings were presented at the 2024 International Anesthesia Research Society meeting by Montefiore-Einstein Center…

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Editor's Note Patients who engage in prehabilitation—exercise, diet changes, and social support—before surgery significantly reduce their risk of complications, shorten hospital stays, and improve recovery, according to a new evidence review in The BMJ. As reported January 24 by HealthDay, the analysis of 186 clinical trials involving more than 15,500…

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Editor's Note Using electronic medical record (EMR) data to track time-stamped information on patient movements and interaction with healthcare workers (HCWs) can help predict and block potential avenues for pathogen transmission, researchers claim. Healio reported the news January 24. Published in the journal Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology, the research…

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Editor's Note A new machine learning model using photoplethysmogram (PPG) data more accurately assesses pain during and after surgery compared to existing commercial methods, according to research published January 24 in Nature’s npj Digital Medicine. Analyzing data from 242 patients, researchers developed an XGBoost-based model to assess intraoperative and postoperative…

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Editor's Note According to medical experts, healthcare professionals in ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) must be more vigilant in recognizing and managing suicidal ideation among patients, Pain Medicine News January 27 reports. With the increasing shift of surgical procedures from hospitals to ASCs, clinicians are more likely to encounter patients struggling…

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Editor's Note The first study to directly compare kidney-related adverse outcomes between perioperative use of gabapentin and pregabalin shows that the former drug carries a higher risk, Renal and Urology News reported January 21. Published in Frontiers in Medicine, the study involved a trial emulation of 1,280 propensity-matched surgical patients…

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Editor’s Note At the Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) annual meeting, experts urged cardiac surgeons to become more engaged in tricuspid valve treatment before transcatheter options gain too much traction according to a January 26 report in MedPage Today. With new transcatheter devices gaining FDA approval and the Centers for…

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