Healthcare facilities are places of healing. Sometimes they also can be places of danger and death—just like the rest of the world. When an ambulatory surgery center (ASC) became the site of a fatal stabbing 3 years ago, outpatient surgery leapt into the public eye, and not in a good…

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Editor's Note In this study, overall physical activity and stress management scores were low for 494 RNs surveyed. Results showed statistically significant differences between RNs 50 years of age and older and those 30 to 39 years of age for health responsibility, nutrition, and stress management, which suggests that older…

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Hundreds of nurse leaders filled the room for a presentation on dealing with difficult people during the annual OR Manager Conference in October 2015—a testament to the prevalence of bullies and disruptive behavior in the OR environment. “In early 2011, a Google search was run using the terms ‘nurse bullying’…

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Workplace violence reached a whole new level with the San Bernardino mass shooting earlier this month that left 14 dead just a week after three people died in a shooting at a Planned Parenthood facility in Colorado Springs. These incidents occurred for different reasons, but both cut short people’s lives…

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The use of storytelling and listening to staff stories can be a valuable tool to help OR managers understand and mitigate workplace challenges and incivility. These are the findings of a doctoral study by Patricia Littlejohn, MBA, RN, CNOR, director, neurosciences and program development, Regional Medical Center, San Jose, California.…

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Editor's Note The Occupational Safety and Health Administration on December 1 launched a new webpage to provide employers and workers with strategies and tools for preventing workplace violence in healthcare settings. The new strategies and tools focus on prevention programs that include: management commitment and worker participation worksite analysis and…

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Editor's Note A surgeon’s transformational leadership skills were associated with improved OR team behavior, in this study. Each one-point increase in a surgeon’s transformational score corresponded to three times more information-sharing behaviors and nearly five and a half times more voice behaviors among the team members. With each one-point increase…

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Editor's Note Like healthcare facilities across the country, those in Oregon are struggling with the growing problem of smartphones in the OR. This article and audio includes interviews OR personnel, residents, medical students, managers, administrators, and patient safety regulators on the issue of smartphones in the OR. The executive director…

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Editor's Note There are no federal regulations or quality measures that address cell phone use in the OR, but some say the time for clear-cut guidelines has come. They cite errors and lax safety procedures that have resulted from physicians and nurses distracted by cell phone use. But others point…

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Our Take Distractions in the OR are associated with higher mental workload and stress and poorer teamwork among OR personnel, a study finds. The most prevalent distractions were those from external staff, followed by case-irrelevant conversations. Case-irrelevant conversations initiated by surgeons were associated with lower teamwork in surgeons and anesthesiologists. Equipment-related…

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