Editor's Note Employment in US hospitals was up 9,700 jobs in January to a seasonally adjusted 5,252,800, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on February 7. That’s up 88,500 more employees than a year ago. Overall, healthcare employment has increased to a seasonally adjusted 360,700 in the past year. The…

Read More

Editor's Note Employment in US hospitals was up 8,800 jobs in December to a seasonally adjusted 5,297,100, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on January 10. That’s up 102,000 more employees than a year ago. Overall, healthcare employment has increased 398,800 in the past year. The overall unemployment rate remains…

Read More

The Best in OR Business Award is presented annually at the OR Business Management Conference to recognize an outstanding leader who has saved on costs, increased OR utilization, improved patient safety, or otherwise streamlined the surgical services department. The 2020 award will be presented to Vikram Tiwari, PhD, associate professor…

Read More

Editor's Note In this first-year analysis of a data capture system called the OR Black Box, frequent intraoperative errors, events, variation in surgeons’ technical skills, and a high amount of environmental distractions were identified. In 132 patients having elective laparoscopic general surgery: auditory distractions occurred a median of 138 times…

Read More

Editor's Note The Food & Drug Administration (FDA) on December 30 announced a public workshop on the “Evolving Role of Artificial Intelligence [AI] in Radiological Imaging, which will take place February 25-26, 2020, at the Natcher Conference Center, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland. The workshop will include discussions on…

Read More

Editor's Note Integrating artificial intelligence (AI) with surgical decision making could transform care by augmenting the decision to perform surgery, informed consent process, identification and mitigation of modifiable risk factors, decisions on postoperative management, and shared decision for resource use, this review finds. Surgical decision making involves hypothetical-deductive reasoning, individual…

Read More

Editor's Note Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas have developed a new software tool that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to recognize cancer cells from digital pathology images, a December 9 UT Southwestern news release reports. The spatial distribution of different types of cells can reveal a cancer’s growth…

Read More

Editor's Note In this study, the most important data-use practice associated with successful implementation of enhanced recovery pathways (ERPs) was data feedback to frontline providers of process and outcome measures. Of 140 hospitals analyzed, 52% reported previous ERP implementation, with wide variations in data-use practices. Feedback of process and outcome…

Read More

Editor's Note In this study, a software app that tracks perioperative controlled substance use and is integrated into the electronic health and pharmacy records and database systems was associated with a decrease in management errors. This analysis includes data on missing controlled substance medications, controlled substance kits, and witness return…

Read More

Anyone seeking a break from the winter weather and a stimulating educational experience will find both at the 2020 OR Business Management Conference (ORBMC), which takes place January 27-30 in Weston, Florida. The highly relevant and timely presentations, along with networking events that connect OR business professionals with colleagues and…

Read More