You could make a legitimate argument that the CDC’s labeling of pain as “the fifth vital sign” in 2001 did more harm than good and directly contributed to the current opioid...

Standardized Scripts for Every Surgery; Tailoring pill counts to procedure type will right-size your post-op opioid prescriptions.

No food or drink past midnight is slowly giving way to carbo-loading up to 2 hours before surgery. Fasting past midnight has been an unwritten Ordinance of the OR...

Every patient who walks into your facility expects to undergo successful surgery and receive compassionate care. In today’s competitive, consumer-driven healthcare...

Skin prepping is serious business at our facility. So serious, in fact, that the staff who prep patients before surgery wear different colored gowns than the rest of the OR...

The effects of single-shot nerve blocks and oral analgesics wear off soon after patients arrive home, leaving them in a significant amount of discomfort....

Patient-centered care is one of surgery's hottest buzzwords for a reason. The patients who walk into your facility expect excellent surgical care. That much is a given....

The surgeon had signed the patient's left side and was about to begin surgery, but something didn't feel right to the medical student in the room. "Can we check...

The winner of this year's OR Excellence Award for Patient Satisfaction goes to great lengths to get patients to fill out their post-op surveys and even greater lengths to...

The OR team at Lakeside Surgery Center in Omaha, Neb., works hard to manage patients’ post-op pain with an eye toward the addiction epidemic. “Our nation is in...

You might consider pressure injuries "out of sight, out of mind," or "not our problem." After all, you have no way of knowing you sent a patient home with a bed...

The patient was saying all the right things, but something about the way she was acting seemed off. Turn on your observers, thought the receptionist. It's the motto...

The only hospital-acquired condition that increased in volume between 2014 and 2017? Pressure injuries, which rose by 6%. By point of comparison, surgical site...

Ever cringe when you overhear your front desk receptionist answer a patient's question (complaint) with all the warmth and compassion of a cactus? You might want to try...

An IV start should be a little pinch, not a big ouch, a minor procedure, not a major ordeal. Patients dread surgery's necessary evil — and your nurses might, too....

When your patients leave your facility, they should know all the do’s and don’ts of wound care. If their wound is changing colors, they should know what that means,...

Ever think of all you can do to optimize your patients' experience and improve their surgical outcomes — before they even step foot into your facility? Here are 5 easy ways...

Like most nurses working in busy hospitals, I’ve seen some pretty horrific pressure injuries in my time. Not every day, thankfully, but we all know that lying on an operating table for several hours...

My Turn: Blessed to Let Go Together; My patient and I leave our grief over losing a loved one on PACU Bay 6

Why Go NPO After Midnight? It's time to get onboard with the not-so-new approach to pre-op fasting.