The nation's melting pot is at a full boil. Consider that racial and ethnic minorities in this country will become the majority population in the coming decades. The United States...

Keeping your patients safe is obviously a core value at your facility, yet compliance with best practices designed to avert serious complications and injuries is sometimes alarmingly low. Use this quiz as a starting point to gauge how well your staff is ready to spare your patients from unnecessary harm.

 One of the common misconceptions providers have when caring for pediatric patients is thinking they’re little adults who can be treated with scaled-down versions of...

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...

Patient warming prevents inadvertent perioperative hypothermia, which can cause vasoconstriction, tissue hypoxia and a decreased ability to fight infections. Perioperative warming...

What do surgical facility leaders need to understand about infection prevention? They need to practice an old-school mentality and be meticulous about every facet...

Considering the astronomical costs associated with even a single surgical site infection (SSI), it makes sense to take every possible precaution to mitigate the risks. But one...

Professionals in the sterile processing department (SPD) do their part to break the chain of infection by disinfecting and sterilizing the tools physicians use to provide safe...

The sterile processing department at my busy medical center was recently expanded to ensure instrument care could keep pace with the opening of new operating rooms and...

As soon as patients are wheeled out of ORs, your surgical team jumps into action. They wipe down and disinfect surfaces, thoroughly mop every square inch of floor space,...

You’re probably beyond exhausted right now. As the pandemic raged on relentlessly over the past year, you worked ceaselessly and went to extraordinary lengths to...

Reprocessing flexible endoscopes is a never-ending job filled with potential pitfalls that can jeopardize patient safety. Our endoscopy center performs about 60 cases a day,...

Lowering your facility’s rate of surgical site infections (SSI) is not something you can accomplish overnight. But that didn’t deter us from wanting to improve our infection...

An increasing number of disinfecting robots have been rolling through the hallways at Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Fort Worth. They’re being used in various areas...

Complaining is as American as baseball (the games are too long!) and apple pie (the crust isn’t flaky enough!). Many of our problems simply aren’t that serious, but that doesn’t stop us from griping about, well,...

Last month, the FDA announced it was investigating post-procedure infections and contamination issues involving urological endoscopes that were cited in 450 Medical Device Reports (MDRs) from January 2017 to...

Great Ideas for your OR

What a difference a year can make. Even as vaccines are being administered and lingering restrictions brought on by the pandemic are being lifted, your center must be prepared to face continuing COVID-related...

I was in New York City working at the Hospital for Special Surgery when the pandemic hit. The outpatient ORs in which I was training to advance my skills as a minimally invasive spine specialist were turned into intensive care...

We keep an emergency flip chart at the front desk of our ASC that’s filled with easy-to-follow emergency response protocols. We also conduct true-to-life safety drills to make sure our staff is ready for nearly any situation...