There's no time like the present to take full advantage of regional anesthesia to manage post-op pain. Nerve blocks are being placed with more precision, patients are...

Awareness continues to develop around the negative health effects of surgical smoke, which contains harmful chemicals, carcinogens, bacteria and viruses. Spending a full...

One positive that's come out of the COVID-19 pandemic is a renewed focus on proper infection control practices. Facilities everywhere are ramping up their protocols...

We wanted to know if surgeons are liking what they’re seeing during surgery, so last month we asked readers for their thoughts on the imaging technologies used in...

As elective procedures resume during the COVID-19 outbreak, you need to tactfully communicate with anxious patients, help financially strapped individuals afford surgery,...

Elective procedures are beginning again in areas of the country where the curve of the new coronavirus is flattening. If you already have strong infection prevention...

The nature of spine surgery makes the risk of wrong-site errors greater than in any other surgical discipline. Similar-looking vertebrae, patient obesity, anatomic...

Even before the coronavirus crisis, operating a surgical facility in one of Alaska’s largest cities brought unique challenges. Patients from rural villages in the state’s rugged...

Even if your facility isn’t on the frontlines of the battle to combat COVID-19, you can still find ways to join in and help. For our temporarily shuttered surgery center, that meant...

Many surgical staff members went to areas hit hardest by COVID-19 to lend their desperately needed skills to patients infected by the virus. Even those who weren't on...

It’s hard to believe 20 years have passed since the enactment of the Needlestick Safety and Prevention Act. The landmark legislation requires surgical facilities to identify,...

Effectively screening patients for COVID-19 is part of pre-op protocols as outpatient facilities across the country slowly begin performing elective procedures again....

Prewarming Works Wonders; Early interventions to maintain normothermia reduce infection risks and increase patient satisfaction.

You recently took to social media to host a Q&A about the coronavirus. What surprised you most about the response?...

Any reprocessing tech worth their scrub brush knows dirty instruments can't be properly sterilized. There's another instrument care risk hiding in plain sight, however,...

The sterile processing staff at Winchester (Va.) Medical Center reprocesses trays of instruments sent to them from 15 ORs. That's a lot to manage, so perhaps it's no surprise...

Imagine working in a facility where 50 orthopedic surgeons have their own unique skin prepping protocols. Factor in 20 nurses who are trying to support the variations...

From the HIV crisis of the 1980s to the H1N1 pandemic of 2009 to the Ebola outbreak in 2014, Maureen Spencer, MEd, RN, CIC, FAPIC, has seen a lot during her more than...

When Can Vendor Reps Return to ORs? New recommendations support their safe reentry during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nasal decolonization should be part of a multifaceted approach to stop the transmission of the new coronavirus in surgical settings and to protect staff and...