Standardization is often the common denominator among successful total joints programs. Take Knoxville Orthopaedic Surgery Center (KOSC), which opened in December 2009 and has had a total joints service line...

The national company that supplied Lakeland (Fla.) Surgical & Diagnostic Center with food and drinks was experiencing shortages and found itself unable to provide the facility with crackers for patients, diet soda for surgeons...

In the main OR at University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics in Iowa City, surgical instruments were consistently going missing, so a multidisciplinary team sought to pinpoint the source of the issue and correct it. The result...

When grateful patients in Central Maine return home from St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center in Lewiston with a successful surgical outcome, the thank you cards they pen aren’t to the finance department. But maybe they should be....

You never want to run out of key supplies your surgical team needs on a daily basis, but you also don’t want to throw away items because they’ve expired. That’s why staff at Eye 35 ASC in Schertz, Texas, place star stickers on items...

Surgery centers are in line to capture a sizable number of cases as insurers and providers look to shift more complex procedures out of hospital ORs. As the migration of surgeries to same-day settings continues to...

After years of negotiating with vendors to purchase supplies for our busy ophthalmic surgery center, we finally found an easier and less stressful way to score...

Does your staff often feel overwhelmed when a big shipment of supplies is dropped off at your facility? All the boxes look the same, making it difficult to determine which shipments have been processed. “In our receiving room,...

Concerns from surgeons and nurses about the quality of our instruments forced us to determine the root cause of the issue. First, we had to find out if it was related to...

Staff at Eye 35 ASC in Schertz, Texas, make sure a team member in each department is always available on a walkie-talkie. The devices — used by pre-op and PACU nurses, surgical team members and runners who turn over...

Two years ago last month, the coronavirus began to spread across the country. The virulent strain, which most of us had never heard of before it quickly became part of...

There’s a lot to juggle at a busy health system with nine operating rooms in which an average of 50 surgical cases are performed each day. When it came to my attention...

If you want to get a glimpse into the potential of outpatient surgery, look no further than orthopedics. Surgeons, armed with the industry’s latest technologies and tools,...

Most cataract surgeons can remove a cloudy natural lens and implant an IOL in less than 10 minutes, so high-volume ophthalmic facilities thrive by finding ways to...

“Load up the SUV honey, because we’re moving to Arizona.” That’s how I broke the news to my wife last year when I agreed to become the CEO of a small surgical center in a rural part of northern Arizona. I spent most...

When linens were in short supply during COVID-19, staff at Houston Physicians’ Hospital (HPH) struggled to procure enough cotton blankets to keep their patients warm. When they reached out to vendors to try to obtain more...

You were a successful nurse anesthetist when you gained national attention from Dirty John, a podcast about your former husband John Meehan, disgraced CRNA, con man...

Avoid using medication containers with barcodes imprinted horizontally on rounded surfaces because they could result in scanning failures that compromise patient safety, warns the Institute of Safe Medication Practices (ISMP)....

Retained surgical items are considered "never events" because they're never supposed to occur — and yet they still happen all too often. "They remain the sentinel event most...

If you're considering prefilled syringes for your facility, a little perspective goes a long way. It doesn't make sense to do an apples-to-apples cost comparison of prepackaged...