Solid OR governance is the foundation for safety
Ten Elements of Safer Surgery. First in a series. What’s the essential ingredient for an OR to run safely and effectively? Many would sum it up with one word—leadership, followed closely by collaboration. An OR led by a strong team from surgery, nursing, and anesthesia backed by the hospital’s…
Succession: Identifying and mentoring OR leaders Second article in a 2-part series. The first article appeared in the December OR Manager.
Not all staff nurses can or want to be managers,” says Judith Mercado, RN, CNOR, nursing service director for perioperative and maternal child health services for Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center. “Informal leaders stand out; they are the superstars of the group.” Identifying those leaders and mentoring them into…
Survey: An OR leadership crisis is looming, but is C-suite listening?
Perioperative nursing is facing a leadership crisis. Though 9 in 10 perioperative nurse leaders think a smooth succession is critical when they retire, they worry about who will take these positions. Most think the scope of their roles needs to be re-evaluated to attract younger RNs, a new OR Manager…
Succession: Making the case for OR management
First article in a 2-part series. Management should be the job people aspire to, says John Olmstead, MBS, RN, CNOR, FACHE, director of surgical services and emergency department at The Community Hospital in Munster, Indiana. “In too many hospitals, it’s the hot potato. People say, ‘I wouldn’t want to…
Teaching hospitals are adding business managers
As financial pressures grow, ORs are adding business managers. That’s particularly true for teaching hospitals, where 64% now have a business manager, and for larger ORs with 10 or more rooms, where 55% do, according to the 22nd annual OR Manager Salary/Career Survey. In contrast, 5 years ago, just 47%…
How to make 'funny' a part of your leadership role
With all that managers have to balance—schedules, meetings, staff, reports, and shrinking resources, not to mention home, family, and school—who has time to think about being funny? Humor may be more valuable than you imagine, not only in dealing with stress but also in being a better manager. Humor is…
Staff satisfaction: Happy employees have a payoff
Nearly two-thirds (60%) of employees who leave a position do so because of their relationship with their direct supervisor, according to the Studer Group, a health care consulting organization. “Satisfaction is about relationship,” says Marcus Erb, senior research partner at the Great Place to Work Institute, which helps organizations become…
Lateral violence: Tools managers can use to help shift the culture
An orientee comes to you in tears saying a couple of tenured nurses have snapped at her or huffed impatiently when she asked a question. Several other staff have met with you individually about conflict and hurtful comments they say are happening on one of the specialty teams. You already…
Lean methods for weeding out waste
What can a surgical services director learn about running the OR by working at a forklift factory? During 2 weeks in Japan in 2004, Sandra Saltzer, RN, MPA, had a chance to tour 3 factories and actually work in one. At the time, she was director of surgical services at…
Using Lean to steer a department
When a perioperative nurse was recently promoted to be the OR's clinical coordinator, she inherited a department badly in need of coordination. The OR manager was frequently out of the department at meetings, leaving no one to coach the team. Not an experienced manager, the coordinator needed a way to…
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