OR Manager; Vol. 27 No. 11; November 2011 The message coming out of Washington is clear: Do more with less. Under Medicare’s hospital inpatient value-based purchasing (VBP) program launched July 1, 2011, DRG payments will be tied to performance on quality and patient satisfaction metrics. This is part of the…

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OR Manager; Vol. 27 No. 11; November 2011 A new model for performing regional peripheral nerve blocks in the preoperative holding area with RN assistance has been a big win for Stony Brook University Medical Center Ambulatory Surgery Center (ASC) in Stony Brook, New York. The model has allowed orthopedic…

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OR Manager; Vol. 27 No. 11; November 2011 Quantity of Evidence Base (Low) The evidence base consists of a single controlled study of spinal fusion that compared the accuracy of pedicle screw placement in a patient group that had two-dimensional (2-D) and three-dimensional (3-D) intraoperative imaging using the O-arm System…

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OR Manager; Vol. 27 No. 11; November 2011 FDA collaborates to prevent surgical fires The Food and Drug Administration and 16 partner organizations have launched an initiative to: increase awareness of factors contributing to surgical fires disseminate tools for preventing surgical fires promote surgical fire risk reduction practices. Tools include…

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OR Manager; Vol. 27 No. 11; November 2011 Would receiving a single payment for procedures like total hip and knee replacement bring hospitals and surgeons into closer alignment? Would care be delivered in a more coordinated manner with higher quality and greater cost-effectiveness? It’s the way more Medicare reimbursement may…

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OR Manager; Vol. 27 No. 10; October 2011 What might be most effective in preventing wrong surgery? A new analysis from Pennsylvania identifies best practice principles that might have prevented 431 wrong procedures reported in the state since 2004. The 21 principles were published in 2009 by the Pennsylvania Patient…

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OR Manager; Vol. 27 No. 10; October 2011 What might be most effective in preventing wrong surgery? A new analysis from Pennsylvania identifies best practice principles that might have prevented 431 wrong procedures reported in the state since 2004. The 21 principles were published in 2009 by the Pennsylvania Patient…

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OR Manager; Vol. 27 No. 10; October 2011 Christine Halowell, MS, RN, CNOR For this year’s OR Manager of the Year, Christine Halowell, MS, RN, CNOR, perioperative nursing had her at hello. She gravitated to the OR the first time she had an opportunity to follow a surgical patient during…

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OR Manager; Vol. 27 No. 10; October 2011 Shortened hours for preoperative fasting in otherwise healthy patients with no comorbidities have been in place for 12 years. They are left essentially unchanged in a new update by the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) of its practice guidelines for preoperative fasting.…

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OR Manager; Vol. 27 No. 10; October 2011 How well hospitals perform on SCIP measures will affect part of their Medicare payment starting in late 2012. Yet a new study is the fourth to find that the SCIP infection measures aren’t correlated with surgical site infection (SSI) rates. In the…

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