Is your OR as clean as it could be? Evidence shows more is needed
Every OR has policies and procedures for environmental cleaning. But how do you know surfaces are truly free of pathogens that could transmit infection? The stakes are high. Environmental contamination plays a role in the spread of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE), and Clostridium difficile, among others. Evidence…
Surgery by flashlight as Joplin team operates through tornado
It started out as a typical Sunday morning on call—a 7:30 am C section, home for a nap, then a call-back at 3 pm for orthopedic cases. But that Sunday, May 22, 2011, turned out to be anything but typical for Staci Perry, a surgical technologist at St John's Regional…
Editorial
What if in the future nurses and physicians sat down in the same anatomy classes? What if schools offered more joint learning opportunities? That could go a long way toward building the closer collaboration needed to advance the culture of safety. Nurses and physicians learning together could advance safety by…
Laryngospasms to sing at conference
Working in the OR can be intense and stressful. Music and humor are proven antidotes. A group of nurse anesthetists discovered that when they sang "Breakin' Up is Hard to Do" at a Christmas party at the Minneapolis School of Anesthesia in 1990. One of the students came up and…
Is it clean? An objective way to check
Observation can sometimes give you an idea about how well the staff is complying with OR cleaning protocols, but it can't tell you about organic residues that might remain on surfaces. Bacterial cultures of the OR environment can also have drawbacks. To evaluate the effectiveness of its cleaning, a Connecticut…
Meaningful use: What it means for ORs
Meaningful use is a much-used term in the push for electronic health records (EHRs). Eligible hospitals, critical access hospitals, and physicians can earn federal incentives for adopting and demonstrating "meaningful use" of certified EHR technology (sidebar). Your hospital's meaningful use discussions may be taking place away from the OR. But…
A report card on OR info systems
A new report card on surgery information systems is out, the first in 3 years. The report from KLAS Enterprises reviews the 8 top surgery software systems. KLAS is an independent firm that compiles user ratings of health care software. The new report, titled Surgery Management 2010: In Pursuit of…
Nurse-led protocol reduces catheter use, urinary infections
A nurse-driven urinary catheter-removal protocol helped reduce catheter use by 32% and catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs) by 45% per 1,000 patient days over 18 months at one hospital. The finding was different in the hospital's ICUs, however, which report data to the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN). In the…
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