OR business leaders anticipate growth and opportunities in 2020
Planning for volume growth and adopting best business practices for the perioperative environment were overarching themes at the 2020 OR Business Management Conference (ORBMC) in late January. Leading healthcare industry clinicians and experts offered fresh insights into competing in the burgeoning outpatient surgery market and persuading stakeholders to switch to…
Competition engages staff in cost savings and standardization
More than half of respondents to a recent OR Manager reader survey put cost-saving initiatives at the top of their list of important topics, and cost reduction is an ongoing challenge for many OR managers. Leaders at Lehigh Valley Health Network (LVH), based in Allentown, Pennsylvania, took a creative approach…
Endoscope drying effectiveness, microbial levels in automated drying vs standard storage cabinets
Editor's Note An automated drying and storage cabinet with forced filtered air is advantageous for rapid drying of endoscope internal and external surfaces and reducing the risk of microbial growth after reprocessing, this study finds. Using the automated drying cabinet, internal channels of all bronchoscopes, colonoscopes, and duodenoscopes studied were…
Study: Inadequate precleaning can jeopardize sterilization of surgical tools
Editor's Note This study by William A. Rutala, PhD, MPH, and colleagues at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which compared three low-temperature sterilization technologies to steam sterilization of simulated inadequately precleaned surgical tools, found steam sterilization to be the most effective and with the largest margin of…
Nuts and bolts of new technology acquisition--Part 2
Technology acquisitions require OR leaders to weigh the competing demands of stakeholders—including physicians, nursing staff, the finance department, and patients—and to make sure they address those demands when justifying a new purchase. “New technology can be what’s needed to keep competitive in the current environment,” says Beth Bozzelli, MBA, RN,…
Latest sterilization packaging guideline backed by evidence
In October 2019, AORN released its updated Guideline for Sterilization Packaging, which is based on evidence from peer-reviewed literature. This article includes recommendations from that guideline and addresses common misconceptions about sterilization packaging. Other resources for proper use of sterilization packaging include the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation…
Medline’s Illinois ethylene oxide sterilization facility hopes to reopen end of January
Editor's Note Medline Industries has not operated its Waukegan, Illinois, sterilization facility since December 13, 2019, when it was temporarily closed because it couldn’t meet Illinois’ new state standards for ethylene oxide, the January 21 MedTech Dive reports. A Lake County Health Department update on January 17 says Medline began…
Boston Scientific receives FDA clearance for single-use duodenoscope
Editor's Note Boston Scientific announced December 13 that it had received Food & Drug Administration (FDA) 510(k) clearance for the EXALT Model D Single-Use Duodenoscope for use in endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) procedures. The EXALT Model D, which was granted Breakthrough Device Designation from the FDA, eliminates the need for…
Sterilization trumps high-level disinfection for semicritical items
In the never-ending quest to improve patient care, we are always seeking better ways to process medical devices. Many leading experts now recommend transitioning from high-level disinfection (HLD) to sterilization for semicritical items. Semicritical items are instruments or objects that contact mucous membranes or nonintact skin of a patient, but…
FDA of device shortages because of sterilization facility closures
Editor's Note The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on October 25 released a statement warning of possible device shortages because of interruptions in ethylene oxide (EO) sterilization services due to facility closures in Illinois and Georgia. In the statement, the acting FDA Commissioner, Ned Sharpless, noted that “at this time…
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