Getting operating rooms ready for the first case of the day and cleaning the spaces between cases demands plenty of teamwork, coordination and hard work. You can use...

Proper medication safety requires surgical leaders to ask some very tough questions. Are employees stealing drugs for consumption or resale? Did a staffer not dilute a drug...

Your staff must know how to immediately respond if a patient’s airway catches fire, surgical equipment starts to spark or flames erupt in the sterile field. It’s helpful to designate specific roles for each surgical team member...

From meticulous bedside pre-cleaning to high-level disinfection, endoscope reprocessing is a complex process that benefits greatly from standardization. That’s no...

This is an article about endoscope reprocessing. You know what that entails by now. Or at least you should. Scopes are wiped down with an enzymatic cleaner at the bedside...

While the staff at our small outpatient center performed yearly malignant hyperthermia (MH) simulation training, many of us agreed that we could be doing more. MH is...

Test your knowledge about potential hazards — and how to eliminate them.

A popular form of entertainment is a great way to boost your staff’s engagement in infection prevention training. “We decided to turn an entire education session into a zombie-themed escape room with an emphasis on...

Intraoperative fluoroscopy is a powerful but potentially dangerous aspect of many surgeries. The goal is to get the exact images the surgeon needs without exposing...

It's always important to learn from the mistakes of others. When the Joint Commission recently reported 104 incidences involving wrong-patient, wrong-site and wrong-procedure...

During my anesthesia training, instructors would often compare the complexities of administering sedation to learning how to fly a plane. Anesthesia providers, like their pilot counterparts, undergo rigorous training....

The medication errors that cause serious patient harm can be avoided through better safety practices and system changes. Half of the items that landed on the Institute for...

Throughout my career as a perioperative director and surgery center administrator, I've developed information packets that inform my teams about what accreditation surveyors might look for and ask about. I eventually thought...

Test your knowledge of current best practices with this informative exam.

There are several ways to ensure your staff is properly trained to handle a malignant hyperthermia emergency. Making them sit through yet another annual in-service or having them read dry educational materials...

Tiger Woods works with a coach who tweaks his near-perfect swing. Stefani Germanotta takes voice lessons to be Lady Gaga. Glenn Close receives professional training...