The role of a nurse leader in an ambulatory surgery center (ASC) can take many forms depending on the ASC’s size, structure, and governing environment. Larger ASCs can support a number of leaders and roles. Factors that influence this number are whether the ASC is part of a network, the…

Read More

Hospitals and health systems are feeling the effects of the staffing shortage now more than ever. In a recent study, 90% of nurses considered leaving the nursing profession within a year. Even further, 71% of RNs with over 15 years of experience reported thinking about leaving as soon as possible.…

Read More

Ambulatory service centers (ASCs) are back in expansion mode after a slow-down during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, as the pandemic took hold, ASCs saw a decrease in growth as people delayed or opted out of elective surgeries. But that delay only served to highlight the importance of ASCs to…

Read More

Editor's Note In this study from the UK, researchers find that two-thirds of carbon contributions in the OR can be attributed to single-use items and one-third to reusable products used in five common surgical procedures. The mean average carbon footprint includes: 85.5 kg CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalents) for knee arthroplasty…

Read More

Editor's Note At ACC.23 (the American College of Cardiology 2023 conference), Sunil Rao, MD, director of interventional cardiology at NYU Langone and president of the Society of Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI), spoke about the shift in interventional procedures from hospitals to ambulatory surgical centers (ASCs), Cardiovascular Business April 10…

Read More

Editor's Note The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), on April 10, released its fiscal year (FY) 2024 Medicare inpatient prospective payment system (IPPS) proposed rule, which would increase Medicare payments by 2.8% for hospitals that are meaningful users of electronic health records and submit quality data. The 2.8%…

Read More

Editor's Note In this study, led by the University of Alabama at Birmingham, overlapping surgery was shown to reduce in-hospital mortality and to have similar patient safety indicators and readmission rates as nonoverlapping cases. Operative time was shown to increase with overlapping cases. A total of 87,426 cases were included…

Read More

Editor's Note President Biden, on April 10, signed a congressional resolution ending the 3-year COVID-19 national emergency a month earlier than expected, but a separate public health emergency will remain in effect until May 11, the April 10 Associated Press reports. The resolution terminates COVID-19 related waivers for federal health…

Read More

Editor's Note This study from the University of Texas Southwestern, Dallas, finds that nonoperative management of acute appendicitis was associated with reduced complications in older but not younger patients. Included in the analysis was data from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s National Inpatient Sample on 474,845 patients with…

Read More

Editor's Note The Joint Commission, on April 5, posted a clarification on the time frame for querying the National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB). Among the revisions: Medical Staff (MS) Standard MS.06.01.07, Element of Performance (EP) 9 and Standard MS.07.01.01, EP 3, on the time frame to evaluate a licensed practitioner’s…

Read More