Flexible endoscopes are notoriously difficult to clean, putting unsuspecting patients at risk of being exposed to infections by unsuspecting physicians. After a serious flexible...

It costs the Graystone Eye Surgery Center in Hickory, N.C., $1.05 to warm a patient. A loaner linen service charges $1 to clean a blanket, and the cost of using the...

Roughly 70% of retained surgical items are sponges, and roughly 80% of retained sponges occur with what staff believe is a correct count. No wonder OR managers...

We're all probably a little numb to medication safety. We get it. It's super important. We live the life. It's easy to become complacent until we have a problem....

Kids like to drive electric cars to the OR. Older patients prefer the quiet ride of a motorized stretcher chair that transforms from seat to transport stretcher to OR...

If you don't ask your patients if they smoke weed, you might want to start. As more states legalize both medicinal (33 states and D.C.) and recreational (10 states and D.C.)...

When it comes to retained surgical items (RSI), you shouldn't assume anything, you should prove it. And if you don't see it, you should find it. Working in surgery,...

Your surgeons might have the greatest training, the most accurate technique and work with cutting-edge equipment, but they can’t fix what they can’t see. Lighted...

The next time you need a lesson in radiation safety, pop your head into a procedure room to watch an interventional pain doc at work....

Scott Augustine, MD, begins an hourlong pitch about the dangers of the Bair Hugger forced-air patient warming system he invented — and is now campaigning against...

From speed bumps and sticky pads to arm tucks and tilt tests, you pull out all the stops to protect patients when you place them in the Trendelenburg position....

Instead of discarding unused fentanyl in real time, your anesthesia provider aggregates all discards and brings them out for witnessing by another licensed professional...

It's no secret that a stapler failure can quickly turn a routine procedure into an emergency. What's surprising is the alarming number of times staplers have misfired...

We place many of our neuro patients in the prone position. Until recently, we were also re-positioning them in the prone position. Quite a bit. Not good. The more you move...

I was a kid when I first learned about Will. He was the brother I never met. Will had been taken from my parents before I was born, when he was just 2 years old. One day,...

We know that pre-operative warming can help prevent hypothermia, which will lead to improved surgical outcomes, fewer surgical site infections, and much happier patients...

Let's make it a safe day, LBJ! That's what the charge nurse here at Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital in Houston announces to the entire perioperative team at the end of every morning...

In turning away patients who are above a certain BMI, is your cutoff a sliding scale that edges outward as the obesity epidemic worsens? You're hardly alone if what started...

True safety in the OR isn't about what you report to CMS and the various rating agencies that will grade you for quality. Self-reported safety surveys offer a lot of wiggle room...

Safety: Need Help Establishing a Culture of Safety? This survey self-assessment tool will identify areas of needed improvement.