"Our society has become a lot louder, and we tolerate a lot more noise," says Verna Gibbs, MD, director of NoThing Left Behind and professor of clinical surgery, University of California, San Francisco. That includes the OR, where phones, overhead pages, alarms, suction, ventilation equipment, medical devices such as drills,…

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Gently probing a wound with a dry cotton swab after surgery for a perforated appendix dramatically reduced infections in a study. Only 3% of patients who had the daily probing got surgical site infections (SSIs) compared with 19% in the control group who did not. Though the exact mechanism isn't…

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Editor's note AUGUST 2011 OR leaders are striving to make evidence-based decisions about new technology. OR Manager, Inc., and ECRI Institute have joined in a collaboration to bring quarterly supplements with summaries of the Institute's Emerging Technology Evidence Reports to OR Manager readers. ECRI Institute is an independent nonprofit organization…

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It's a question ORs have faced for several years—what do you use for the vaginal prep when the patient is allergic to povidone iodine? After Techni-Care (PCMX, or chloroxylenol) stopped being made in 2009, clinicians were left without a skin prep indicated for use in the genital area for iodineallergic…

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Do you know where your OR's process is at most risk for an error that could lead to wrong-site surgery? A South Carolina health system identified its improvement opportunities and came up with solutions as part of a national project with the Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare (CTH). Five…

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Obese patients are nearly 12 times more likely to have postoperative complications after elective breast procedures than nonobese patients, finds a study published online ahead of print in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. Overall, 18.3% of obese patients suffered complications compared to 2.2% of nonobese patients in a review of insurance…

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Researchers from Penn State College of Medicine have singled out a genetic variation in patients who have postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV). In the study, the researchers pooled DNA samples from 122 patients with severe PONV. Findings identified 41 genetic targets (called single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs) in these patients…

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For the past four years, Rhode Island Hospital (RIH) in Providence has reviewed its processes for preventing wrongsite surgery from top to bottom. The hospital has been under the microscope after several widely publicized incidents dating back to 2007. The hospital has been fined by the state and successfully passed…

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