You’ve had a chaotic morning. The first patient of the day canceled their procedure and your nurse navigator called in sick, throwing your facility’s entire schedule off track....

A few months ago, after a very long day, I closed my laptop following a late evening Teams call with my then-boss Dan Cook, and said to my wife, “I don’t know how that guy pulls this off each month....”

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.

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...

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....

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...

Not long after we opened the doors to our small outpatient center in 2004, we experienced our first sharps injury. That was just the wake-up call we needed to ensure the event was a one-off mistake and not an unfortunate...

Surgery is currently dominated by two forms of turnover: The turnover of breaking down and setting up for the next case and that of OR personnel jumping ship or retiring. This combination of fast-paced scheduling and increasingly...

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...

When Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker signed into law last year a measure that required hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers to eliminate surgical smoke, it was a big win for the nurses...

Coach orthopedic patients to better outcomes throughout their entire episode of care with exacCoach by Exactech. The virtual system features fully customizable messaging for sending automated and personalized texts...

I used to believe surgical facilities should operate just like the airline industry. Can you blame me? Flight crews rely on safety checklists, built-in redundancies and meticulous protocols to make sure planes take off...

Monkeypox continues to pose a threat since an outbreak of cases began in the U.S. earlier this year. As of Sept. 29, the CDC reported 26,631 confirmed cases...

Our endoscopy center opened in December 2019, a few months before COVID-19 hit. My head was spinning not only from trying to run a brand new facility, but from rapidly changing infection prevention protocols...

When I founded the Atlas Surgical group of ASCs 15 years ago, we outsourced our billing operations. Our collection rate was about 80%, which was acceptable, but not stellar. I came to realize...

Every surgical provider knows what a warm blanket can do for patient satisfaction. But why limit yourself to blankets? At Advanced CardioVascular Solutions in Oklahoma City, every patient who comes through its doors receives...

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...

Teams in sterile processing departments are often tasked to do more with less, especially when surgeons push to perform more cases than the instrument inventory can handle and reprocessing techs are pressured...

The Medical Play Distraction Therapy program at Shriners Children’s Lexington (SCL), Ky., doesn’t end when pediatric patients are discharged. Parents are instructed to contact the recreational therapist who worked with...