Outpatient Surgery Magazine - Subscribers

OR Excellence 2019 Awards - Outpatient Surgery Magazine - September 2019

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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Audit your preference cards. Verify with your staff and sur- geons that your cards are up to date and accurate. Ask things like, "This $1,500 item you used last time, is that something we need to order every time?" In some cases, staff might have added a rarely used device to the preference card. And then, lo and behold, you're ordering — maybe even overnighting — these items and then ship- ping them right back, incurring restocking and shipping fees, because you didn't need it after all. Have these conversations and make the necessary changes. You'll want to audit on a regular basis — say, once a year. Oversight. Who's in charge of updating and managing your pref- erence cards? If you can dedicate one person to this task — someone to whom everyone consults on changes and provides updat- ed information for revising cards — you'll operate much more smoothly. Beware the nurses and scrub techs who like to have things on hand that aren't usually necessary, but would make them "the hero" if the surgeon actually needs them. Or they order them just in case, so they don't need to leave the OR and chase them down. Don't update preference cards in the OR. It's usually pretty hec- tic in the OR. Nurses trying to change cards on the fly often are sloppy or make mistakes. Whoever's in charge of updating the cards should do so in a setting away from the OR and, really, away from as many distractions as possible. This is serious work that requires con- centration. Provide forms for OR staff. Place blank forms in ORs that nurs- es can fill out when they feel a card needs updating. This form should include such basic info as date, name of person submitting 2 3 1 4 Business Advisor BA 3 8 • 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 9

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