Operating Rooms

Why Tracking Down Patients With Recalled Implants Is Hard Even With Unique IDs

November 1, 2017 / Cath Lab, Clinical Documentation, Hospital Management, Operating Rooms, Patient Safety, Radiology, Supply Chain, The Business of Surgery, Tissue Management /

Recalled medical devices continue to be a patient safety and financial concern for hospitals and insurers. A recent study by Medicare estimated that over a 10 year span, they spent over $1.5 billion on surgeries and follow-up for over 73,000 patients implanted with one of seven defective heart devices.  With such a staggering sum spent […]

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Meeting Joint Commission Tissue Tracking Requirements

October 7, 2021 / Clinical Documentation, Joint Commission, Operating Rooms, Operational Efficiency, Regulatory Compliance, The Business of Surgery, Tissue Management /

Creating safe, efficient and accurate tissue management processes has become a top priority for PeriOperative departments across the country. Regulatory requirements designed to protect patients continue to evolve and expand with the growth of tissue usage and advances in surgical life-saving and life-enhancing procedures. Approximately 1.75 million people are currently receiving tissue implants annually just

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How to Set a Consignment Strategy

August 16, 2022 / Big Data, Cath Lab, Cost Reduction, Hospital Finance, Hospital Management, Operating Rooms, Operational Efficiency, Radiology, Supply Chain, The Business of Surgery /

Consignment items have been a frequent subject of conversations we have with inventory managers in procedural areas of hospitals.  Many hospitals that we’ve visited have a mix of consigned and owned products in their inventory. However, when you dig deeper you’ll find that many supplies were added to inventory as consigned or owned for inconsistent

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How Much Is Consignment Costing Your Hospital?

October 12, 2021 / Hospital Finance, Hospital Management, Operating Rooms, Operational Efficiency, Radiology, Supply Chain, The Business of Surgery /

In a walkthrough of a major academic hospital in the Northeast US, the Chief of Surgery was lamenting how little space she had for new operations. The new hybrid Operating Room she was planning was going to be larger than their typical OR, making the issues even worse. As we walked through the ORs, a

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Do You Hear Too Many Footsteps?

September 7, 2017 / Big Data, Cath Lab, Cost Reduction, Hospital Finance, Hospital Management, Operating Rooms, Operational Efficiency, Radiology, Supply Chain, The Business of Surgery /

Today, most hospitals are starting to understand what items and supplies they use by looking at data coming out of their documentation or materials management systems.  Maybe they even go a step further to standardize on certain products (it seems like every hospital has a “Product Standardization Committee” and/or “Value Analysis Committee”). But does your

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Insights From a Scope Pro – Jhmeid Billingslea

September 6, 2017 / Managing Endoscopes, Operating Rooms, Patient Safety, Regulatory Compliance /

This is part of a series of interviews being held with professionals who have deep expertise in the requirements and protocols around endoscope reprocessing in hospitals.  The goal is to learn about and educate on existing and emerging best practices in endoscope reprocessing.  I had a chance to sit down with Jhmeid Billingslea, the Director

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Minimizing Patient Risk Through Automated Inventory Management

October 5, 2021 / Cath Lab, Operating Rooms, Operational Efficiency, Patient Safety, Radiology, Supply Chain, The Business of Surgery /

For those directly involved with patient care, supply management for patient procedures or risk assessment, how does your team effectively manage the inventory of implantable items that are about to expire? Or more importantly, the items that are already expired? When we look at how the procedure areas in hospitals – ORs, Interventional Radiology, Cath

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Comparing Supply Tracking Technologies

August 30, 2017 / Big Data, Cath Lab, Hospital IT, Operating Rooms, Radiology, Supply Chain, The Business of Surgery /

Why Explore Supply Tracking Automation? Hospitals and health systems in the US are typically generating annual revenues in the hundreds of millions to billions of dollars. Their profit margins are razor thin and getting squeezed tighter each day. Yet hospitals, and specifically their procedural areas like the ORs, Cath Labs and Interventional Radiology, are sitting

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How Your Medical Devices Can Tell You When They’re About To Expire

October 5, 2021 / Big Data, Cath Lab, Hospital IT, Operating Rooms, Operational Efficiency, Radiology, Supply Chain, The Business of Surgery /

A recent survey conducted by Cardinal Health showed that 24% of hospital staff have seen or heard of an expired product being used on a patient during a procedure (original article here). This comes as no surprise, as we have witnessed the usage of expired inventory at hospitals first-hand.  Without the proper processes and vigilance

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How To Make Your Scopes Tell You When They’re Missing

August 30, 2017 / Cost Reduction, Hospital Finance, Hospital IT, Managing Endoscopes, Operating Rooms, Operational Efficiency /

All successful endoscopy practices within private practices and hospitals face the same dilemma – how do I track down scopes that have gone missing? With numerous docs, interns, techs and nurses all having access to all the scopes in your facility, it’s a near impossibility to keep track of all of your scopes with 100%

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