Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles (CHLA) is renowned for patient care, but by early 2013 the increased complexity of new technology and other factors had eroded efficiency. Orthopedics had fallen to the bottom quartile compared to national benchmarks for turnover times, and executive leadership called for change. Within orthopedic surgery,…

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Postsurgical pain scores are highly correlated with reports of overall patient satisfaction during hospital stays, according to a poster presented at the 2014 American Academy of Pain Medicine annual meeting. Dermot Maher, MD, and his colleagues from Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles examined patient responses on HCAHPS (Hospital…

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If you skipped this year's OR Manager conference, you missed an opportunity to learn about the evolution of healthcare delivery and the changes you should be making at your facility. Improving the patient’s experience of care was an underlying theme. We’ve all heard about the shift from volume-based to value-based…

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OR leaders have always been committed to patient safety, but an increased focus on quality has them redoubling their efforts. With the recent initiatives linking patient satisfaction to reimbursement, it’s not surprising that OR leaders are emphasizing patient safety and satisfaction, as reflected in comments from the 24th annual OR…

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If a fancy hotel can make its guests feel well cared for, why can’t a surgery center do the same? Spivey Station Surgery Center in Jonesboro, Georgia, discovered that using principles of hospitality could take it beyond excellent patient care to higher levels of patient satisfaction and staff morale.  …

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The number of nurse practitioners is expected to double by 2025, and the need for surgical first assistants is growing as residents’ work hours are reduced and surgeon assistants are eliminated to cut costs. This situation offers a great opportunity for advanced practice perioperative nurses. A double certification of nurse…

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Hospital safety scores released by the Leapfrog Group on April 29 show a 6.3% average improvement since 2012. Performance at almost a third of hospitals has improved at least 10% since 2012, but some hospitals’ scores have dropped. And with medical errors tied to more than 400,000 deaths per year…

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A mobile, web-based rounding tool is allowing the perioperative leadership team at Vail Valley Medical Center (VVMC) in Vail, Colorado, to collect, analyze, and report on information gathered from surgeons, staff, and patients to improve quality of care and move toward high reliability. Software designed by MyRounding Solutions in Littleton,…

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OR Business Performance is a series intended to help OR managers and directors improve the success of their business.   Better-performing surgery departments have always paid careful attention to the patient experience. Today, payment reform and market evolution are making patient satisfaction in an OR more important than ever. Patient…

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Surgery is a stressful time not only for patients but also for their families. Using a surgical liaison to communicate the status of an operation to those in the waiting area has boosted the satisfaction of patients, families, and surgeons, say perioperative directors whose hospitals have these positions. The liaison…

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