Surgical volume in the past year increased for 40% of respondents to the 2018 annual OR Manager Salary/Career Survey, down slightly from the 48% reported in 2017. This result is intriguing in light of the proliferation of procedures now being performed in ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs). Does this suggest some…

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By 2024, the demand for registered nurses in the US will top 1 million, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), with the largest gaps seen in hospitals in the South and West. The RN workforce is expected to grow 16%, from 2.7 million in 2014 to 3.2 million…

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Employee engagement is a buzzword that often crops up in articles, webinars, and conferences. OR leaders may be tired of seeing it, but engagement is crucial for success in an environment of fast-paced change, leadership turnover, and increasing demands for better performance. In healthcare, research has linked engagement with greater…

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Societal problems in recent years have placed increasing burdens on healthcare workers. With the increase in mass casualty victims, people displaced by natural disasters, and drug or alcohol addicts, it’s not uncommon to experience disruptive patients or families of patients who arrive at the facility under a great deal of…

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Editor's Note In this study, working overtime negatively influenced nurse-nurse and nurse-physician collaboration. Survey data from 24,013 nurses in 957 units from 168 hospitals in the National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators showed that one third of nurses work beyond their scheduled shifts. One hour of overtime was associated with…

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Mixed signals about the direction of healthcare reform, payment models, and policy decisions have characterized much of the past year. Given the number of highprofile personnel changes in the Trump Administration, the lack of continuity isn’t surprising. In recent days, however, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has…

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Just as nursing schools don’t include the operating room in their curriculums, they also don’t include any instruction on the postanesthesia care unit (PACU). And like the OR, the PACU is having trouble recruiting new nurses. In September 2015, Houston Methodist Hospital began a PACU residency program to train new…

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Disengagement costs organizations money through lost productivity, not to mention the risk of errors that a disengaged workforce brings. Yet in August 2017, Gallup reported that only 32% of people are engaged at work. Much of disengagement can be traced to what Cy Wakeman, president and founder of Reality-Based Leadership,…

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An organization’s culture is shaped by the collective attitudes and behaviors of the people who work there, and if no one is willing to make personal changes, no program of the month is likely to have a lasting impact. To change their attitudes and behaviors, people must be made aware…

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The Best in OR Business Award will be presented to Karlene Power, MSN, BSN, RN, at the 2018 OR Business Management Conference in San Antonio on February 1. Power already has been recognized for her outstanding work at Banner Health in Phoenix, where she is system executive director, perioperative service…

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