No homeowners willingly allow a burglar to enter their home and steal their most valuable possessions. Instead, people put locks on doors, install alarm systems, build fences, or keep big dogs. The thieves may still get in, but deterrents like these will reduce the risk of a successful burglary. Ambulatory…

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Disruption in the perioperative setting occurs across a continuum ranging from verbal outbursts to physical violence. “We live in an increasingly violent society, and we need to take measures to educate and prepare nurses and other team members to be safe,” says Margo Halm, PhD, RN, NEA-BC, associate chief executive,…

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To improve healthcare delivery and eliminate duplication, hospitals are banding together into systems in which specialties such as labor and delivery and smaller surgical cases are performed at satellite hospitals, and larger, more complex procedures are done at the main campus. This is the approach taken at the Cleveland Clinic,…

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Societal problems in recent years have placed increasing burdens on healthcare workers. With the increase in mass casualty victims, people displaced by natural disasters, and drug or alcohol addicts, it’s not uncommon to experience disruptive patients or families of patients who arrive at the facility under a great deal of…

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When errors occur, sometimes with devastating consequences, healthcare leaders often perform a root cause analysis (RCA) to prevent a recurrence. Understanding what happened is an important step in the recovery process. It’s also important to realize the effect of a sentinel event on healthcare providers—those “second victims” who find themselves…

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Can hospital leaders and surgeons partner to reduce opioid use while maintaining high patient satisfaction scores? Leaders at OSS Orthopaedic Hospital in York, Pennsylvania, answer that question with a yes. Meghan McNelly, PharmD, MHA, FACHE, who was director of pharmacy at OSS when the opioid-reduction project started, says that from…

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Among the many variables that influence on-time starts of surgical cases are the arrival times of patients and staff, as well as the verifications and documentation required before patients are brought to the OR. Increasing on-time starts was a key initiative at Fox Chase Cancer Center. By exploring the influences…

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The Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) has released a sterilization standard on quality management for central service (CS) sterile processing. The new standard, ANSI/AAMI ST90: 2017 Processing of Health Care Products: Quality Management Systems for Processing in Health Care Facilities, provides guidelines to support quality management systems…

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