Outpatient Surgery Magazine

OR Excellence Awards - September 2018 - Subscribe to Outpatient Surgery Magazine

Outpatient Surgery Magazine, providing current information on Surgical Services, Surgical Facility Administration, Outpatient Surgery News and Trends, OR Excellence and more.

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• Standardize implants. Gundersen's orthopods were using a variety of implants, so they worked to narrow the choices in order to qualify for a reduced rate through a buying group. "When new surgeons come on board," says Ms. Wied, "we tell them that we want them to use these standards, even if they hadn't before. There's been no resistance." • Examine your supply costs item by item. Gundersen's sup- ply costs were pretty low to begin with, but there was one outlier: cement costs. They were using antibiotic cement, which costs more than antibiotic-free cement. The total joint surgeons weren't married to antibiotic cement, so Ms. Wied asked the purchasing depart- ment to find an antibiotic-free cement. "We now add the antibiotic our- selves," says Ms. Wied, "and that reduced our cost greatly." • Do you really need to catheterize? Thanks to a push by the surgi- cal nurses, Gundersen no longer inserts catheters into total joint arthroplasty (TJA) patients. After reviewing research showing TJAs don't need catheters post-operatively, nurses did a small study at the hospital to test that finding. When they confirmed for themselves what researchers had found, the nurses presented their findings to the surgeons, who agreed. "That saves us $30 per case in insertion time and supply costs," says Ms. Wied, "and did away with costs related to 1 0 6 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E • S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 8 • STOP THE BLEEDING Administering intravenous and topical tranexamic acid is key to achieving "meticulous" hemostasis. Pamela Bevelhymer, RN, BSN, CNOR

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