Editor's Note The Joint Commission on April 24 announced that it will be posting spring 2019 updates to the E-dition® of its accreditation and certification manuals in May. The changes, which can be viewed on an organization’s Joint Commission Connect® extranet site, will go into effect July 1 unless otherwise…

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Artificial intelligence (AI) may be coming to your OR sooner than you think. AI is already being used to identify areas needing quality improvement by analyzing surgical workflow, communication patterns, and errors that went unnoticed during a procedure. OR leaders need to understand AI and participate in its development and…

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The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Joint Commission require healthcare facilities to have policies and protocols in place for emergency situations and to hold regular practice drills. With natural disasters like hurricanes, floods, or fires, often there is at least some warning—some amount of time to…

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Compassion fatigue can come into play at any stage of nurses’ careers. Nursing is growing at a faster rate than other occupations, but it carries a high risk for burnout. Loss of job satisfaction, job-related distress, or perhaps exposure to too many traumatic events can threaten the ability of staff…

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Whatever your facility’s disaster management plan, it needs continual refinement to account for the differences between imagined and real scenarios. Hurricane Harvey, which hit Houston hard on Saturday, August 26, 2017, is a case in point. The storm brought more than 60 inches of rain within a couple of days,…

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High labor costs, surgeon dissatisfaction, high staff turnover, and low staff competency are problems that dog many OR leaders at some point in their careers. When managers at the Stanford University Medical Center Main OR in Stanford, California, found themselves facing all of these problems at once, they knew something…

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Editor's Note Pregnant women who work two night shifts per week have a heightened risk for miscarriage after pregnancy week 8, this Danish study finds. Of 22,744 pregnant women analyzed, 2 or more night shifts the previous week increased the risk of miscarriage after pregnancy week 8 (hazard ratio, 1.32).…

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Editor's Note Better work environments are associated with lower odds of negative outcomes ranging from job dissatisfaction to patient mortality, finds this meta-analysis from the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing. This analysis of data from 2,677 hospitals, 141 nursing units, 165,024 nurses, and 1,368,420 patients in 22 countries found…

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San Diego in January is a place where many people would rather be, and the 475 healthcare business and industry leaders who gathered there for the 2019 OR Business Management Conference (ORBMC) enjoyed the mild climate along with high-quality presentations and fun networking events. Conference attendance rises each year, yet…

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Managing the OR is similar to playing a game of poker. To win, a player must be able to read the others around the table, and to succeed, managers must be able to read their staff members and colleagues. Most importantly, they all must know the rules and when it’s…

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