Including AORN’s PeriOp 101 curriculum in a bachelor of science (BSN) curriculum has allowed the University of St Thomas in Houston to break new ground in nurse education. Launched in May 2012, the program—a partnership between AORN, the University of St Thomas School of Nursing (UST), and Harris Health System—exposes…

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A perioperative immersion clinical for nurses pursuing a bachelor of science degree has gotten off to a good start in Wisconsin. Launched in 2012, the program matches students with preceptors during the final semester of their senior year. Students complete 252 clinical hours and the entire AORN Peri-Op 101 curriculum,…

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What do you do when your orientation program isn’t effective in educating and retaining OR staff? Carol Pehotsky, MSN, RN, ACNS-BC, CPAN, director of peri-operative education at the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio, found herself in that position 3 years ago. “We blew it all up and started over,” she…

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For the past 3 years, Tanner Health System has conducted “Education Day,” a mandatory perioperative skills course that supplements online courses, in-services, and other types of education. Staff attend the half-day course on a Saturday in early January to learn about complicated high-risk, low-volume, problem-prone procedures as well as new…

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Most OR leaders use performance reports to inform and guide critical decisions. The problem is that in most hospitals, the data used to create these reports are not reliable. Why? Even the smallest surgery department is too complex for the most sophisticated OR data solution. To yield reliable reports, information…

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Surgeons perform about 600,000 hysterectomies per year in the US, but less than 1% of these take place in ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs). Richard Rosenfield, MD, is trying to change that. Before he founded Pearl Surgi-Center in Portland, Oregon, Dr Rosenfield performed outpatient hysterectomies at several local hospitals as an…

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Designing an OR suite involves detailed planning, knowledge of regulations, an interdisciplinary team, a laser focus on process, and even a little bit of luck. Keeping all the balls in the air requires a master juggler, and OR managers are uniquely suited for that role. Architects and planners use guidelines…

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Moving quickly up the ranks of the top 10 most frequently scored standards for Joint Commission accreditation is EC.02.05.01. At the end of 2012, this standard was just barely in tenth place, with 34% of hospitals noncompliant. By the first half of 2013, it had moved to fourth place and…

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