With opioid-sparing protocols firmly positioned as the standard for managing post-op pain, surgeons and anesthesiologists have become masters of multimodal analgesia, perfectly combining a little bit of this with...

Patients who undergo surgery on their birthdays definitely deserve special treatment, so we make a point to scan the case schedule every morning to check if a patient is celebrating a life milestone. If they are, we surprise them...

Last year was obviously challenging for our surgery center. The staff was physically and emotionally exhausted from working in one of COVID-19's first national hot spots, and sorely needed the annual holiday dinner...

Ambulatory surgical facilities have pivoted quickly during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has shown clinical teams are able to make a number of changes in short order. In this new world of must-dos, though, we can't lose sight of...

Patients were already a bit nervous when they would arrive for their endoscopies or colonoscopies, and we noticed that sitting in the waiting room watching the news would often stress them out more. We thought, why not get rid...

Retained foreign objects were the most frequently reported adverse event between 2015 and 2017, according to The Joint Commission. We decided to tackle this issue head on by developing a custom count board...

CMS requires surgery centers to have infection preventionists on staff. Some facilities assign providers to the role simply to fulfil the requirement, but infection prevention has taken on a greater significance during...

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...

With so many mobile C-arms available from numerous vendors who offer a wide variety of functionality and unique features, picking the right one for your facility can feel overwhelming. Start by collecting substantial feedback from...

When Stamford Health (Conn.) discovered a lack of standardization in its skin antisepsis protocols, the OR leaders at the facility knew they had act. After all, inconsistency is the enemy of an effective prepping process....

I remember my first paycheck. It was made on a now-vintage machine, the kind with a hand crank that imprinted the amount: Ten Dollars. That was my starting salary for a week-long summer gig as a kid at my grandfather's...

Adverse events involving wrong-site, wrong-side and wrong-patient errors are devastating outcomes for surgeons who must live with the mistakes and patients who suffer unnecessary physical scars. These never events persist ...

I've never been so happy to watch the ball drop on New Year's Eve. As soon as it touched down and ended the year we want to forget, I looked forward and focused on setting some self-care goals....

Buying commonly used medications in premixed, pre-labeled and prefilled syringes should be a no-brainer, right? You'd think so, but ready-to-use syringes are more...

Hand hygiene has always been important, but COVID-19 has caused us all to refocus on doing it right. To make sure our staff is keeping up with this important task, we perform a fun exercise with Glo Germ, a lotion that glows...

Monthly one-on-one talks with each of my staff members gives them the chance to speak about any issues they have and talk openly about whatever subject they choose to discuss. The meetings are brief check-ins...

At long last, the end of 2020 is in sight. Good riddance. I haven't been this excited for the start of a new year since Y2K. Back in October, I honestly considered covering my...

The Oregon Clinic Gastroenterology East at Gateway in Portland ?shut down in March for nearly two months when the pandemic's initial wave hit the west coast hard....

Leadership at our facility believes in hiring the best people possible — then letting them do their jobs. To make this happen, we don't employ traditional pecking orders or a typical hierarchical structure. Medical reps talk...

The buck stops with sterile processing techs, who are ultimately the ones responsible for returning complete instrument sets to ORs on time and properly sterilized....