Imagine this: As a nurse in the OR talks with a patient, a computer listens in, recording the nurse’s notes so that data are added automatically to be retrieved later. The surgeon and anesthesiologist also interact with the patient without the burden of manual data entry, and the insurance company…

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Consider the following requests posed to OR scheduling staff by surgeons: • “I need two blocks in different rooms to accommodate my daily case volume.” • “Can’t I just use that empty room to start my next case while the first case is wrapping up?” Surgeon requests like these are…

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David Shapiro, MD, who is a risk manager/medical director at several ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) near Tallahassee, Florida, has seen his fair share of contracts with anesthesia services. Navigating these types of contracts at a time when anesthesiology is suffering from a workforce shortage and high costs for services is…

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Editor's Note The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on November 10 issued a report outlining its plans, “for the first time,” to improve the transparency, accountability, and completeness of health equity data across its programs. “CMS defines health equity data as the combination of quantitative and qualitative elements…

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Editor's Note This study led by researchers at Yale New Haven Hospital, New Haven, Connecticut, finds that many patients have unplanned hospital visits within 7 days of outpatient surgical procedures performed in hospital outpatient departments (HOPDs), often for potentially preventable reasons. The analysis included 1,135,441 outpatient surgical procedures performed at…

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Editor's Note Intermountain Healthcare in Utah is the first health system in the state to use a new artificial intelligence (AI) tool distributed by Medtronic that helps doctors detect colorectal polyps in real time during a colonoscopy, a GlobeNewswire press release reports on November 11. The new AI technology is…

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Today’s chat is with Tracy Hoeft-Hoffman, MSN, MBA, RN, CASC, Administrator, Heartland Surgery Center, Kearney, Nebraska. Q: What is something that went right at your facility and/or that you are thankful for this year? What has gone right this year and makes our center so successful every year is the…

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Today’s chat is with Brian S. Dawson, MSN, RN, CNOR, CSSM, System VP, Perioperative Services, CommonSpirit Health, Denver. Q: What is something that went right at your facility and/or that you are thankful for this year? I couldn’t have asked for anything better this year than how our perioperative council…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission announced on November 9 that refreshed Accelerate PI Dashboard Reports are available for accredited hospitals and critical access hospitals to provide updated performance measurement data on certain quality measures. Refreshed “Other” reports contain data through the third quarter of 2021. Data in the reports comes…

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Editor's Note Vials of the chemotherapy drug fludarabine could be purchased at a whole sale price of $110 last year—today, it is being sold for a much higher price, Fierce Pharma November 1 reports. One company, Areva Pharmeceuticals, increased the price to $2,736, Stat News reported on October 27. This…

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