It looks at one of the core challenges the American healthcare system faces today, through the lens of interviews with experts across the healthcare spectrum, by exploring solutions to the problem, rather than maliciously...

The effects of a single retained surgical item (RSI) are often catastrophic to the unfortunate patients who fall victim to these sentinel events. As for the facilities who commit these never-events, the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority...

Sound electrosurgical safety practices often come down to preventing complacency from setting in among the staff who use these high-powered devices to cut and coagulate tissue during countless surgical procedures.

There’s no shortage of compelling data and research on exactly what it takes to prevent pressure injuries. The trick is finding practical ways to put that evidence into...

A high-volume OR is booked to perform six consecutive hand surgeries. Five are scheduled on the right hand, and one, the fourth operation of the day, which is scheduled for 3 p.m., is scheduled on the left hand....

This special issue of Outpatient Surgery Magazine is dedicated to safety from both the patient and the staff perspectives. It’s a topic that is near and dear to me for many reasons. As a nurse with more 30 years’ experience working at...

Facilities with the foresight to invest in the blending of surgeon skill and technological advancements are shaping the future of surgery. MultiCare Health System in Tacoma, Wash., added...

Total hip replacements, those life-changing surgeries that allow nearly immobile patients to enjoy a level of activity they thought was gone forever, are already some...

Grant Shifflett, MD, has a simple way to sum up the importance of positioning patients correctly for spine surgery. “Proper positioning is as important as the surgical...

Ensuring that reprocessed endoscopes are completely dry during storage remains an important patient safety topic in the world of endoscopy. Residual moisture in and around endoscopes promotes the growth...

Cynthia Hawks, BSN, RN, CNOR, CSSM, surgical clinical coordinator for neurology and ENT at Memorial Hermann The Woodlands Medical Center in Shenandoah, Texas, has had a copy of the April 2020 issue of Outpatient Surgery...

Any patient arriving on the day of their surgery is going to be anxious. That anxiety will only grow, and their satisfaction will decline, if their surgery is delayed because of inefficient room turnover times. Getting ORs ready for the next case...

The surgical services team at Ascension St. Vincent Mercy Hospital in Elwood, Ind., is well into year three without a single surgical site infection (SSI). That impressive run has earned its staff the 2022 OR Excellence Award for Infection Prevention....

The team at Eye 35 ASC, a fast-paced, high-volume eye surgery center in Schertz, Texas, doesn’t limit their attention to one or two formal patient safety projects every year. Rather, the center’s tight-knit team operates every day with a keen philosophy...

Preventing inadvertent perioperative hypothermia, a complication that can cause a host of problems such as vasoconstriction, tissue hypoxia and an increased likelihood of...

In a world turned upside-down by COVID and dizzying rates of staff turnover, live, team-based training on how to quickly respond to an instance of the rare but potentially fatal phenomenon of malignant hyperthermia (MH) is...

The most difficult airway is the unanticipated one. Those eight words of advice that Robert W. Simon, DNP, MS, CRNA, CHSE, CNE, heard repeatedly throughout his...

Patient safety should be top of mind at all times, even when high-volume days and high-pressure situations threaten to distract the clinical team from taking the necessary steps to reduce the risk factors that can lead to adverse events....

There’s a great deal of attention paid to the importance of optimizing the nutritional status of patients before surgery and doing away with NPO requirements to prepare them for the stress of invasive procedures...

The practice of requiring healthcare workers to search for medications by typing in at least the first five letters of the intended drug into automated dispensing cabinets (ADCs) would go a long way toward preventing potentially...