Editorial
Most respondents to a July 2020 American Organization for Nursing Leadership survey said they felt prepared for a future surge of COVID-19. That future is now, with nearly 150,000 new cases being reported daily across the country and multiple hospitals at capacity. Survey respondents said their biggest challenges early in…
Access OR Manager Conference sessions by December 31
For the first time in its history, the annual OR Manager Conference was held virtually September 30 to October 2. Many things were different this year, but the robust educational content and advanced technology were the same as in previous years. In a post-conference survey, more than 60% of respondents…
New recommendations issued for instrument care and cleaning
New recommendations developed from evidence-based research have been added to AORNโs Guideline for Care and Cleaning of Surgical Instruments. Several of these changes will have an impact on the quality of processing in sterile processing (SP) areas. This latest version, released on October 12, 2020, includes industry changes that have…
Using advanced analytics to maximize OR utilization
Wasted room capacity is a major problem in hospital surgery departments. In most facilities, OR utilization hovers around 60%. Practically speaking, that means between one-quarter and one-third of expensive OR time is going to waste. Inefficiency at this scale is clearly a financial problem. As hospitals struggle to absorb volume…
OR Orientation Hybrid Program streamlines transition into practice
Half a million experienced nurses are expected to retire by 2022, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This translates into the need for 1.1 million new nurses to replace those who are retiring and to accommodate an expansion in the delivery of healthcare services. An OR nurse with solid…
Shifts in case mix bode well for future of outpatient surgery
Before COVID-19 emerged as the biggest disruptor of 2020, many ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) had been growing volume and receiving Medicare reimbursements for an increasing number of procedures. Stopping elective procedures in the spring was a significant setback, especially for smaller, independent facilities, notes a Global Healthcare Advisors (GHA) brief,…
CDC: Impact of COVID-19 stress on childrenโs mental health
Editor's Note The number of childrenโs mental health emergency department (ED) visits decreased sharply from mid-March through early April 2020, coincident with the implementation of community mitigation measures enacted to prevent COVID-19 transmission, and then visits increased steadily through October, this study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention…
Moderna announces 94.5% efficacy for COVID-19 vaccine
Editor's Note Moderna Inc (Cambridge, Massachusetts) on November 16 announced that its vaccine is 94.5% effective at preventing COVID-19.ย Their analysis of a 30,000-person trial (half received the vaccine and half received a placebo) finds that 90 of the 95 COVID-19 documented cases are in the placebo group. The Moderna announcement…
Thank you for registering for the December 3, 2020 Webinar
Thank you for registering for the Leadership, Policy, and Transparency: Driving Sustainable Value, Efficiency, and Surgeon Utilization webinar. You should receive a confirmation email shortly with instructions on how to access the webinar. If you do not receive this email, please contact us at 1-888-707-5814 or [email protected].
[Free Webinar] Leadership, Policy, and Transparency: Driving Sustainable Value, Efficiency, and Surgeon Utilization
December 3, 2020 | 12:00 p.m. โ 1:00 p.m. ET | 1 CE Managing ORs is hard, especially without access to reliable and readily available data. EHRs that are built to capture information about patients and their care do not provide the level of data visibility or reliability needed to…