Baptist Hospital in Miami, Fla., this year’s winner of the 2019 OR Excellence Award for Employee Safety, is well on its way to clearing the OR air of surgical smoke thanks...

Before critical procedures like our high-volume thyroidectomies, we gather a multidisciplinary team to play a game of "What Could Go Wrong?" in which we discuss...

Two words that strike fear in the heart of every OR manager: open time. That, of course, is when your ORs sit silent and empty while it's standing-room only in the staff...

There were boxes of suture hiding everywhere at AdventHealth Surgery Center Lenexa (Kan.), some opened and some outdated, some stored on the big suture cart...

The winner of this year's OR Excellence Award for Patient Satisfaction goes to great lengths to get patients to fill out their post-op surveys and even greater lengths to...

We've shaved some precious minutes off our turnover times by creating a "runner" position to help the RN, surgical tech and the 1 to 2 instrument techs we staff for each...

When I'm Queen of the World, new-job orientation will be department-specific. I don't know a thing about ICU or ER, nor do I need to, yet I just endured an incredibly,,,

If your surgeons have too few or too many of the instruments and supplies they need for a case, your preference cards are inaccurate and outdated. It's too few if your...

Last fall, Saint Francis Health System in Tulsa, Okla., made a big push to improve point-of-use instrument cleaning by posting a new regimen for staff to follow...

Surgeons come in all shapes, sizes and sexes with individual ergonomic needs. Those instruments designed for the burly 6-foot-6 surgeon who played middle linebacker...

The surgeon had signed the patient's left side and was about to begin surgery, but something didn't feel right to the medical student in the room. "Can we check...

Lasers are powering numerous procedures at eye surgery centers — cataracts, glaucoma, astigmatism, cornea and retina among them — with more on the way....

The OR team at Lakeside Surgery Center in Omaha, Neb., works hard to manage patients’ post-op pain with an eye toward the addiction epidemic. “Our nation is in...

However wonderful it might (or might not) be for healthcare pricing to be transparent, what does it matter if you have no clear understanding of related costing and other...

The patient is prepped and draped, and I'm seated to begin my charting. Only then do I realize that I've forgotten to record the serial number of the SCD box. I'd have to hop...

What type of immune response does your surgical mesh elicit in patients? That's a question you and your surgeons should ask, says Stephen F. Badylak, DVM, MD,...

We've all seen patients with post-op delirium. They're disoriented and confused immediately after surgery. They have trouble focusing and are unable to participate...

It sounds almost too good to be true: a credit card without interest for medical expenses. But if you're losing out on potential patients who can't afford skyrocketing...

We hang an image of the American flag on the OR door to alert the surgical team that the patient is a combat veteran who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder...

It’s one thing to log and track laboratory specimens and post their results in the patient’s chart. But that doesn’t confirm that the ordering healthcare provider read...