Editor's Note The Joint Commission on June 20 announced “Quick Safety 42: Identifying human trafficking victims.” The Quick Safety focuses on: recognizing signs of human trafficking knowing when to involve law enforcement becoming familiar with community resources that can help the victims.

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Editor's Note Getting to know staff members and supporting that interaction with data helps leaders grow teams, S. Chris Edmonds says in the May 24 Great Leadership. To influence others in the workplace, Edmonds says: Connect with people at all levels and learn their names, their passions, what hinders their…

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Editor's Note Encouraging words are more appreciated when they are informal and specific in their praise, reports the May 15 Fast Company online. A few ways for managers to put this into practice include: Showing appreciation for an idea not just in meetings but during impromptu interactions, like corridor conversations.…

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Editor's Note In this study, working overtime negatively influenced nurse-nurse and nurse-physician collaboration. Survey data from 24,013 nurses in 957 units from 168 hospitals in the National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators showed that one third of nurses work beyond their scheduled shifts. One hour of overtime was associated with…

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Editor's Note Unplanned admissions of medical-surgical patients to intensive care units (ICUs) dropped after a New Hampshire Medical Center implemented a new early warning score communication bundle, this study finds. The hospital embedded a seven-item modified early-warning score system into the electronic medical record (EMR) for patients in its four…

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Editor's Note Inadequate functional health literacy (FHL) in ambulatory surgery patients was associated with poorer postoperative recovery and a lower quality of life in this study. Of 704 patients undergoing ambulatory surgery who were surveyed, 427 (60.7%) reported sufficient FHL, 223 (31.7%) said problematic FHL, and 54 (7.7%) had inadequate…

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Creating a positive patient experience creates patient satisfaction, which can affect reimbursement. But it’s not just business that calls many OR leaders to focus on patient experience. Having been a patient who has had surgery, it’s near and dear to my heart,” says Carol Pehotsky, DNP, RN, NEA-BC, ACNS-BC, CPAN,…

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When Carol Schneider, MSN, RN, CCRN, CPAN, became manager of a postanesthesia care unit (PACU) at Boston Medical Center in Massachusetts, she found a plethora of problems, including poor communication skills, low employee engagement scores, and bullying from surgeons and staff. “It was a very bad climate that was putting…

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Creating a more harmonious work environment is a struggle for some OR leaders. Tips on how to achieve this were offered during the 2017 OR Manager Conference and the 2018 OR Business Management Conference (ORBMC), and we share some of these in the March issue. A dysfunctional atmosphere in the…

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Disengagement costs organizations money through lost productivity, not to mention the risk of errors that a disengaged workforce brings. Yet in August 2017, Gallup reported that only 32% of people are engaged at work. Much of disengagement can be traced to what Cy Wakeman, president and founder of Reality-Based Leadership,…

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