In her quest to create an anti-racist healthcare system, DeAnna Minus-Vincent, MPA, often thinks about her grandfather. Ms. Minus-Vincent, senior vice president and chief...

The medication errors that cause serious patient harm can be avoided through better safety practices and system changes. Half of the items that landed on the Institute for...

Communication apps and online management software improve overall efficiencies by helping to properly prepare patients for surgery and making sure cases start on time....

If it’s a chore to get everyone on board with helping to keep your facility clean, schedule “cleaning parties” during times when no surgeries are scheduled. During these dedicated cleaning days at our eye surgery center,...

Hopefully, we’ll never experience another pandemic and mandatory shutdown of elective surgery again. But if we do, we now know exactly how to keep our staff busy with meaningful work while they wait to reenter the OR....

When our management company instituted a day of service held on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, we jumped into action to see how we could support our local community. Two of our nurses, Patty Boyle and Dunbar Salin, worked with...

It was the end of a busy day in Stanford Hospital’s oncology clinic and I was completely spent from the grind of my responsibilities as a surgical intern. I wanted to find a quiet...

In our July 2020 issue, several surgical professionals bravely shared their experiences of racism and expressed hope for a more inclusive future. We asked them to reflect on...

The nation's melting pot is at a full boil. Consider that racial and ethnic minorities in this country will become the majority population in the coming decades. The United States...

Keeping your patients safe is obviously a core value at your facility, yet compliance with best practices designed to avert serious complications and injuries is sometimes alarmingly low. Use this quiz as a starting point to gauge how well your staff is ready to spare your patients from unnecessary harm.

 One of the common misconceptions providers have when caring for pediatric patients is thinking they’re little adults who can be treated with scaled-down versions of...

Throughout my career as a perioperative director and surgery center administrator, I've developed information packets that inform my teams about what accreditation surveyors might look for and ask about. I eventually thought...

Patient warming prevents inadvertent perioperative hypothermia, which can cause vasoconstriction, tissue hypoxia and a decreased ability to fight infections. Perioperative warming...

What do surgical facility leaders need to understand about infection prevention? They need to practice an old-school mentality and be meticulous about every facet...

Considering the astronomical costs associated with even a single surgical site infection (SSI), it makes sense to take every possible precaution to mitigate the risks. But one...

Professionals in the sterile processing department (SPD) do their part to break the chain of infection by disinfecting and sterilizing the tools physicians use to provide safe...

The sterile processing department at my busy medical center was recently expanded to ensure instrument care could keep pace with the opening of new operating rooms and...

As soon as patients are wheeled out of ORs, your surgical team jumps into action. They wipe down and disinfect surfaces, thoroughly mop every square inch of floor space,...

Reprocessing flexible endoscopes is a never-ending job filled with potential pitfalls that can jeopardize patient safety. Our endoscopy center performs about 60 cases a day,...

You’re probably beyond exhausted right now. As the pandemic raged on relentlessly over the past year, you worked ceaselessly and went to extraordinary lengths to...