Non-physician surgical first assistants (FAs) perform a variety of tasks—everything from closing an incision and inserting drains to harvesting veins for bypass procedures and preparing anterior cruciate ligament grafts. A significant benefit of FAs is shorter case times, which may help reduce patient morbidity and mortality and increase case volumes.…

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The increasing availability of COVID-19 vaccines, along with proposed healthcare industry funding from the federal government, are reasons to feel hopeful about recovering from the pandemic. For people who are fully vaccinated, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has green-lighted gathering with loved ones and resuming some activities that…

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Personal health and well-being have become higher priorities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Some people who previously may have ignored preventive care or postponed procedures are taking better care of themselves. Some are reexamining life choices as a result of changes taking place over the past year. “Many of us accept…

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Most high-performing ORs share something in common—an anesthesia group that is actively engaged in perioperative leadership, takes responsibility for organizational performance, and is fully invested in the success of the OR. Unfortunately, in many ORs, anesthesia providers focus narrowly on services and procedures, not the total performance of the surgery…

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This issue of OR Manager is being published just about a year after the nationwide shutdown that was implemented to curb the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Failures on many fronts ensued in the months that followed, with an excessive death toll and unprecedented disruptions in every…

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During the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare workers nationwide have experienced patient deaths on a scale like never before. Whether from COVID-19 or other complications, surgical services staff sometimes lose patients despite their best efforts, and these failures to rescue can leave lasting psychological or emotional scars. Many healthcare facilities have ramped…

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To rebound from the industry-wide disruption caused by COVID-19, many healthcare organizations are focused on optimizing OR processes to clear the backlog of elective surgical procedures and improve financial performance. However, traditional OR block management methods for surgical schedules provide limited foresight into what block time will ultimately go unused,…

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For BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) leaders who are healthcare professionals, ensuring the delivery of quality care is often made more difficult by the racial or ethnic bias they may encounter within their organizations. In this article, five BIPOC perioperative leaders share their experiences and offer advice for…

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Editor's Note Cindy Kildgore, MSHA, BSN, RN, CNOR, has been appointed the new Education Coordinator for the OR Manager Conference. Kildgore will head the 2021 OR Manager Conference Program Committee, comprising twenty perioperative leaders, to build the event’s conference agenda. Kildgore was a perioperative services director for more than 20…

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Burnout among healthcare workers was on the rise long before 2020, but it has skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, many healthcare organizations have stepped up efforts to support their staffs. “Maybe 20% of burnout is something an individual can control, but the other 80% is the work…

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