Last December, I was part of a committee at AORN that organized a food drive to benefit low-income families in Southwest Denver. We partnered with the principal of a local middle school, who recorded...

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a common disorder affecting approximately one in four adults. It's also often undiagnosed — 90% of people with OSA don't know they have it — and undertreated. Failure to appropriately...

We should all engage in dialogues with people who are different than we are — whether that's a different race, gender identity, cultural background or generation — to learn about perspectives other than our own. Listening sessions...

Everyone believes they have a general sense of "what" pain is. We've all stubbed our toes, slipped and fell, had horrible headaches or, worse still, stepped on Legos. Of course, this type of pain is incidental, unanticipated...

As you read this column, I will have been vaccinated against the dreaded virus we've been fighting for the past 12 months and started a new assignment as a travel nurse. I plan to retire at the end of the year, so this gig...

Discharge can be a confusing time for patients and their family members. The after-effects of anesthesia cause some amnesia, and the information and directives about post-op care are given when family members might be...

The pandemic has caused us all to re-examine our infection prevention strategies, including those related to personal protective equipment (PPE). Staff and physicians who properly wear PPE protect themselves...

Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) protocols involve standardized care pathways that limit post-op pain with minimal use of opioids. Patients who enter the pathways...

Rob Taylor, RN, BS, IP, was about halfway through his very first day on the job as the clinical director of the Constitution Surgery Center in Waterford, Conn., when he was...

Every January, managers from the OR, anesthesia and central sterile gather to review our hospitals' policies and procedures in order to make needed changes. Because representatives from many different disciplines...

As the president of a full-service anesthesia group, my number one goal has always been to protect my staff and our patients. That priority has certainly been put to the test...

We created a custom handoff form that's placed on top of each patient's chart to keep staff abreast of pertinent information that's not typically part of their medical record. In addition to noting case start and stop times...

Retained foreign objects was 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...

Regional anesthesia provides potent perioperative pain control, reduces the risks of problematic complications and decreases the need for unnecessary opioid prescriptions....

The jury's been in on double-gloving for quite some time now. Wearing two layers of protection is an easy, cost-saving and low-tech way to reduce risks of cross-contamination...

How did your widely used scale come to be? I met Donna Wong, the late co-author of the scale, in 1981. We shared a concern about...

The persistent pain above her ribcage made sleeping at night nearly impossible. "My primary care physician dismissed it as a muscular injury that would correct itself,..."

Great ideas for your OR

Early this year, one of the first total hip replacements paid for by Medicare was performed on a woman in her late 80s at our outpatient surgery center. This was only possible because the Centers for Medicare...

Abulatory 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...