Conference Grid

Lean is gaining acceptance in hospitals across the US. But often Lean raises the guard of staff members who may feel threatened by the idea of doing more with less. Lean practitioners may contribute to this resistance by setting the wrong expectations of performance with little emphasis on the cultural aspects of a Lean hospital.

The speakers will present Lean principles and tools for the perioperative department within the context of necessary change to fully embrace Lean. They will use mini case studies involving preference cards, anesthesia room, simulation, and internal and external changeover steps in the OR.

The session will be divided into sections with lecture, case studies, and hands-on simulation games. There will be an open discussion on the value of Lean for perioperative services and how to become a Lean OR.

Effective use of intangible resources is the most important tool to effect and maintain change in the OR.

In today's fast-paced OR setting, everyone is concerned about efficiencies. Appropriate resource utilization is essential to the success of the OR suite transformation. While resources are tangible and intangible, tangible resources are the easiest to measure and track. Intangible resources include physician support, leadership support, change agents, and using the right person in the right position.

This seminar will focus on intangible resources because they are more challenging to identify, implement, and sustain. University Hospital has significantly improved its perioperative performance, and the speakers will show how effective use of intangible resources is the most important tool to manage change.

Vassell will discuss how to use intangible resources, identify change brokers, and break down barriers to adequate use of resources. You will engage in dialogue with the physician and nurse as they discuss their approach to the project from both viewpoints.

One of the challenges for ASC leaders is managing critical operational practices that demonstrate best practices while maintaining readiness for the regulatory surveys. Two experienced ASC nurses will lead this interactive seminar and share tools that will assist you to prepare for multiple types of regulatory requirements.

Stewart will share information that has lead to the success of her ASC with its ability to maintain compliance while providing excellent customer satisfaction. She will provide tools they have used to sustain their success.

Stinchcomb will review regulatory requirements, including mandatory reporting to CMS, top accrediting deficiencies, and requirements for all functions in an ASC.

Together they will discuss the future of ASC operations and compliance, regulatory changes on the horizon, and the role of developing ASC nurse leaders.

This popular team returns to provide an update on Joint Commission standards and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) requirements.

Changes at the Joint Commission include new elements of performance to correspond to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) requirements. Many of the most problematic standards are applicable to the OR and invasive procedure areas. Together, this team will identify these issues, highlight how surveyors attempt to assess your compliance, and discuss bullet-proof solutions to ensure a finding-free survey.

If you are cited for one or two requirements for improvement (RFIs), what can you do? Accredited organizations have access to a post-survey clarification process that allows an organization to eliminate some RFIs and appeal to avoid condition-level findings. The Joint Commission has developed detailed instructions on how to do a clarification, but it is an option that many hospitals fail to take. The speakers will explain how to identify clarification opportunities, how to write effective clarifications, and how to write brief, but powerful evidence of standards compliance.

You will take home helpful tools, and there will be plenty of time for Q & A and problem resolution.

Kick start the CCI Certificate Program for Surgical Services Management onsite at OR Manager by completing the two most important subjects - Financial Management and Surgical Services Management. These instructor-led courses will begin with a webinar in mid-October outlining the program requirements. Participants will receive a complete set of learning modules, access to online assessment test and a diagnostic report of management strengths and weaknesses. Upon successful completion of all six modules, participants will earn a certificate of mastery and 22.1 CEs. Join over 750 managers who have participated in this evidence-based program which is based on a national survey of surgical services managers and directors.

View additional program information on www.ormanagerconference.com/cciprogram.

If you are a new perioperative manager, you will welcome a hand up from this team of experienced OR leaders.

This seminar is designed to help new managers understand their role and responsibilities in the perioperative environment. You will hear about collaborating with other departments and leaders to establish systems and processes for the organization and integrating those with the OR processes.

You will have the opportunity to hear an overview of the things these experienced managers have learned over the years about basic management. The speakers will discuss your responsibilities for human resources, risk management, safety, staffing, materials management, and other pertinent topics for a successful career as an OR leader.

There will be interactive discussions regarding actual scenarios experienced by the speakers and attendees.

There is still more to do to prevent surgical site infections (SSI).

In 2011, the Health and Human Services action plan was to reduce surgical site infections (SSI) by 25%. But as of October 2011, only a 10% reduction had been achieved. “Inadequate sterilization of surgical instruments has resulted in SSI outbreaks,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The recent regulatory and accreditation focus demands best practices related to all aspects of cleaning/decontamination, disinfection, and sterilization of reusable medical devices. Joint Commission surveyors are finding more deficiencies in the reprocessing practices in health care facilities and ambulatory surgery centers.

Two experts will discuss the importance of following evidence-based guidelines from AAMI, AORN, and the CDC to prevent infections and the responsibility of the perioperative nurse to ensure that reusable medical devices are processed correctly and that the environment is properly cleaned to eliminate cross-contamination.

There will be time to clarify issues in reprocessing that you face so come prepared with your questions, and these experts will clarify the issues for you.

The Veterans Health Administration has won high praise for its patient safety achievements.

In 1999, the Department of Veterans Affairs National Center for Patient Safety was established to lead the VA's patient safety efforts and to develop a culture of safety throughout the Veterans Health Administration.

A team from the National Patient Safety Center will demonstrate many of the techniques and explain the philosophy they have used to train multidisciplinary teams in the OR.

This interactive session will share the VA’s medical team training (MTT) program in the OR setting. Implementation of this program has been associated with decreased surgical mortality and morbidity across the VA system. The program’s cornerstone is preoperative briefings and postoperative debriefings, guided by a checklist.

You will have an opportunity to develop a briefing/debriefing checklist for use in your own facilities. Effective communication, teamwork, and crew resource management skills, techniques, and key concepts will be demonstrated during engaging practice opportunities.

Nurses sometimes hesitate to speak up when they see something wrong. Powerful dynamics in the OR often conspire to silence nurses who detect an error or a safety issue.

The consequences of medical errors highlight the need for nurses to be able to voice their concerns when they see a potential error or safety issue. A new approach to ethics in the workplace suggests that staff are enabled to speak up and confront problems like medical error and safety issues when they engage in a process of:

-Naming common problems

-Identifying reasons and rationalizations for not acting

-Scripting persuasive and powerful replies

-Rehearsing persuasive and powerful replies with peer coaches.

This seminar will introduce the “Giving Voice to Values” framework and demonstrate its application to ethical dilemmas participants have faced. In peer groups, you will work through activities to formulate and practice scripts for addressing the barriers to speaking up.

Attendees will build confidence in confronting workplace ethical concerns or value-based dilemmas. As a manager, you will develop strategies for creating environments that promote open communication and enable others to voice concerns.

In health care, change happens every day. Grooming the leader in you offers the greatest opportunity for unlimited individual potential while working together with a thriving workforce committed to serve.

Today’s leaders must be new thinkers. They must be creative and original in their problem-solving. They must be brave and bold in their decision making. And they must recognize the value of collaborative team building.

If you have attended one of Susan Brooks seminars in the past, you know that this highly interactive program will sharpen your leadership skills, raise your bar, and offer you the chance to serve as the ‘outrageous, courageous, and highly contagious’ leader that you are.

In this thought-provoking and inspirational presentation, through the use of stories and humor, Rich Bluni reminds all health care leaders why we chose this profession. His personal stories illuminate those sacred moments we all experience. Those of us that call health care our life’s work must also take care of “self” to do the challenging physical, emotional, and intellectual work that it takes to serve patients and staff.

Inspired Leadership is a welcome validation that when we stay engaged and committed, we are more likely to provide extraordinary patient care, make a difference for those whom we serve, and work with in terms of both clinical outcomes and human compassion.

This presentation will provide the opportunity to connect or reconnect with your passion for health care and recognize the value it brings to excellent patient care and leadership.

Kick-off the OR Manager Conference in style with hearty hors d'oeuvres, spirits and celebration in the Exhibit Hall. Mingle with more than 100 exhibitors and see what they're showcasing at our 25th annual event.

When evidence-based practice is discussed in nursing, the focus is usually on ensuring that clinical care provided to patients is based on the judicious use of the current best evidence available. Rarely do nurse leaders consider that their leadership practice should also be evidence-based.

Sherman, nationally recognized for her work in nursing leadership development, will examine evidence-based leadership strategies that can you use to improve your leadership effectiveness as an OR director or manager. To be a successful leader, you need to continually challenge your assumptions and be willing to look at best scientific evidence available to guide your decision making.

You will hear from a nurse leader who is passionate about providing leadership development, coaching, and giving career tips to nurse leaders. She will inspire you to develop your full potential as an OR nurse leader.

Learn how the OR in this community hospital improved patient safety and team collaboration and communication in every OR, every day, with every surgeon, anesthesia provider, scrub, and circulating nurse.

The director of surgical services recognized that cultural issues, including hierarchy, assumptions, and institutional secrecy, impeded optimum care. The medical directors, however, had a different perception of the culture and didn’t see a need for change.

Jointly they embarked on a journey to determine what their culture was and if there were steps that would improve collaboration and communication with every surgeon, every anesthesia provider, every staff person, and every patient. The results convinced medical staff and hospital leadership to undertake to achieve the highest culture of safety.

You will learn how to improve collaboration and communication among doctors, nurses, and staff members. The speakers will share the methodology they used to change the department culture so all the team members developed the ability and willingness to speak up if they see something questionable. This program resulted in a physician satisfaction ranking in the 95.8 percentile in 2011.

Invasive surgery is now moving towards minimally invasive surgery, while interventional imaging is moving toward more invasive intervention. A hybrid OR attempts to meet both of these needs.

As expected, a hybrid OR has it benefits as well as its compromises. Among the benefits is that interventional imaging and open surgery can be accommodated in a single location, possibly as a combined procedure.

Alternatively, a hybrid OR is the location where high-risk interventional procedures may be conducted because open surgery would be immediately available as a backup procedure in that space.

In this breakout, the speaker will discuss the basics of hybrid ORs, types of procedures supported, and different types of imaging systems that are integrated into hybrid ORs. The key elements of hybrid OR planning, designing, procuring, and implementation will be described.

Faced with increasing capital costs, in 2009 this facility implemented unique processes and a project and portfolio management system that integrates with the financial system. The system allows the institution to better select, track, measure, and close capital projects on-time and on-budget, resulting in efficiencies and overall financial savings for the organization.

The implementation of the processes and management system has resulted in the closure of many old projects and the return of a substantial amount of unused funds. The speakers will demonstrate how compliance metrics have helped the institution create transparency, highlight process bottlenecks, drive results, show resource constraints, and prioritize project selection and workload. They will give an overview of how projects are assessed and the methodology the capital committee used to ensure alignment of surgical acquisitions with the overall strategic plan of this academic medical center.

What is frustrating for leaders and coworkers every day?

This OR director will describe how the leadership and OR Practice Council identified barriers to the “perfect day” and used them to develop service standards for all staff that describe expected behaviors. There are policies for what, where, how, and when to do things so the OR staff can take good care of patients. These are now part of each staff person’s evaluation and have made a positive impact on the journey to the “Perfect Day.”

The speaker will discuss the service standards and how they relate to practice.

At the Christiana SurgiCenter on the Newark campus, they reached gridlock--a steady decline in case volume, with either zero growth or a decrease in the past eight fiscal years. At the same time, nonblock holding surgeons found it difficult to schedule cases in the facility, providing impetus to take business elsewhere.

The presenters will share the transformative action they took to completely erase the existing block schedule. The risk in taking this step was the potential alienation of those surgeons who held block time in the existing system. The potential upside was creating an open-access system in which 16% would be maintained as unassigned time. Through detailed analysis, it was concluded there was excess capacity in the system.

OR allocations are now based on historical utilization. By exercising a small amount of control over how the OR time is allocated, they created capacity and access for patients in need of their surgical service.

Surgical services have been developing scorecards to track and measure their progress in meeting efficiency benchmarks. It is important to understand what is required to develop a business scorecard that will deliver the information you are expecting.

Dolan, an experienced business manager in surgery services, will walk you through the process of designing the scorecard, communicating the results, and reevaluating the content. He will discuss how to identify value in your metrics and how to build a balance of measures to complement your priorities and strategic plan.

Reevaluating the scorecard content on a regular basis and appropriate communication of the information on the card is as important as the initial development. You will see samples of scorecards that can be implemented in any organization.

When this hospital received the call from the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) announcing that it had received the Magnet designation, it was a morning of sheer exuberance. One exemplar stood out for the ANCC. It had not seen a professional practice model (PPM) better deployed throughout an organization.

Developed around the five Magnet components, the PPM is color-coded on a pinwheel to show that the practice model is fluid. The strategic plan was developed around the PPM using the same colors. The model was then used to create the departmental plan for perioperative services.

The speakers will share how staff engagement played into their strategic goals and processes. They will describe how the color-coded PPM reinforces the Magnet components and drives the strategic plan as well as how front-line leadership engagement enhanced deployment of the PPM. They will provide examples of how patient- and family-centered care can be actualized in perioperative services.

This surgery department decreased staff turnover from 40% in 2007 to <1% in 2011. The implementation of a new staffing plan model not only reduced turnover but also increased staff and physician satisfaction, improved patient safety, and reduced cost.

The new staffing model has almost eliminated call in the OR, one of the primary drivers of staff turnover. An extensive financial analysis was reviewed to determine the fiscal viability of the new model and enabled the management team to sell the new model to senior management for approval.

You will learn about the benefits of creative staffing, and how it can improve staff satisfaction.

The OR Manager of the Year Award is presented to a deserving individual who has performed exceptionally in his or her management position. Join your colleagues for the presentation of the OR Manager of the Year Award and to congratulate the recipient.

Optimizing OR efficiency has traditionally been approached from an OR-centric perspective. Process change focused on the OR without consideration for preoperative and postoperative contributions constrains improvement possibilities. The OR is only as successful as the upstream and downstream processes that feed and receive patient volume. The shift from an OR-centric approach to systemic thinking yields a higher level of improvement opportunities.

Systemic thinking increases the ability to predict bottlenecks that can hinder patient throughput, resulting in decreased quality and satisfaction indexes and underutilization of perioperative resources. The consequences associated with optimization of OR capacity without considering staging and PACU cycle times include rushed patient care, increased probability of errors, idle OR time, and lower satisfaction scores relative to delays.

This breakout will draw contrast between inefficiencies associated with OR-centric change and successful best practices attributed to systemic thinking. The speakers will describe Lean tools used to gain efficiencies by focusing on a systemic-thinking approach.

When the unexpected happens, will you be ready?

The presenters will describe how they experienced an internal disaster in surgical services.

You will hear how they provided support and understanding for the surgical services team and identified how they would do better the next time. Processes were put into place, and roles were clarified to support the central processing, peri-anesthesia, and the OR departments.

The speakers will discuss how roles were clarified and how they measured their success or failures through the evaluation process post-disaster.

You will take home information that will help you be prepared if your OR suffers an internal disaster.

Three hospitals collaborated to develop a surgical value-analysis process (VAT) to meet the goals set by corporate administration. The speakers will discuss how they worked together to gather meaningful information regarding cost-saving techniques, the education of staff to the process, and implementation of the process to all three hospitals.

You will hear how the cost-savings data was collected, tracked, and reported back to corporate leadership. They will share the difficulties in maintaining a cost neutral/cost savings supply budget while promoting new technology and best practice within surgical services.

They will review lessons learned and offer insight to avoid pitfalls they experienced.

Understanding the financial underpinnings of an OR is a basic skill required of perioperative managers. The OR is a high profile profit center for any institution, and financial skills are a necessity in managing this complex service.

This presentation will provide a basic overview of pertinent financial considerations for new OR managers. The presenter, an experience OR director, will demonstrate how to determine in-room staffing needs, block and room utilization calculations, turn-around time reporting, deciphering unit-level financial reports, and variance reporting. You will learn about the difference between rate and volume variances in a unit-level financial report.

What are the risks in preoperative nursing assessments in ASCs?

This study, funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and lead by the speakers, conducted the risk analysis component of failure mode and effects analyses on preoperative nursing assessment in 10 Joint Commission-accredited ASCs. The risk-analysis component identifies potential failure points within a given process and quantifies the potential effects.

The most frequent significant risks (failures) in the preoperative nursing assessment process involved: 1) medication ordering and administration processes; 2) medication reconciliation; and 3) surgical site marking. Other common risks were related to patient identification and problems with communicating clinical information.

The presenters, two experts in ambulatory surgery and risk assessments, will discuss common risks or weaknesses in the ASC preoperative nursing assessments and provide examples of good communication throughout patient care transitions and handoffs.

You will learn how to identify risks and develop intervention strategies.

Reporting on surgical site infection (SSI) rates is growing fast. In January 2012, hospitals started reporting SSI rates on two procedures, colon surgery and abdominal hysterectomy. The list is likely to grow.

You will hear a discussion on how SSI rates are reported and how this will affect your hospital’s Medicare payments.

Greene, who has presented for APIC on the topic of Targeting Zero, will present current information on what to anticipate from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and AORN and APIC guidelines. She will also discuss current information regarding the Surgical Care Improvement Project measures and reporting.

The next decade will bring difficult economic and human resource challenges for health care organizations. As outlined in the recent landmark Institute of Medicine report on The Future of Nursing: Leading Change: Advancing Health, there will be a critical need for frontline leaders who can rise to these challenges and promote innovative solutions.

Recruitment to fill current nurse leader vacancies is already difficult for many health care agencies, especially in the OR where the nurse workforce is older. This trend is likely to intensify by the end of the decade.

Sherman will discuss healthy work environments, generation differences, and review data from an online survey conducted with OR managers about succession planning and emerging leader development. Best practices in the development of future nurse leaders will be discussed.

The OR is one of the highest users of resources in any hospital. It is critical that the OR charging methodology be well thought-out and accurately implemented.

Charges issued in the OR must provide appropriate reimbursement to the hospital for professional and nonprofessional labor and benefit costs, supply costs, and other direct and indirect costs required to provide a high quality, safe, and appropriate surgical service for patients.

Siddel will explain how OR time should be structured, how to recover costs for equipment, and how Medicare determines implant costs. He will discuss whether supplies should be managed and charged locally or systemwide.

You will hear the debate as to whether to bill for all supplies in the OR and many more pertinent charge master topics.

The future of health care is at our doorstep. We are living in the most challenging, demanding, and dynamic times. Health care professionals are gaining new insights everyday into scientific, technological, and social trends that will continue to make the most dramatic and sweeping changes to health care that the world has seen in over 200 years.

That means more change for everyone. And…once you start asking what more you can fit into your schedule, where does it end? The demands in life often cause havoc and destroy our focus and our spark, leading us into stress in our relationships, career, finances, and health.

Connie will share techniques to help manage change and to handle touchy topics, people dynamics, and sticky situations--all with finesse and skill.

At the end of this stimulating session, you will feel on top of opportunities and challenging situations with more energy and new confidence in yourself and your abilities.

The AORN Leadership Specialty Assembly Coordinating Council is pleased to host a breakfast business meeting at OR Manager. AORN has 23 Specialty Assemblies that offer a formal structure to facilitate national networking of AORN members. The Leadership SA is one of the largest groups for perioperative nurses who are interested in administration, management concepts, leadership skills or organizational dynamics for perioperative services. Members of the Leadership SA Coordinating Council look forward to conference attendees joining them for an open discussion on the activities they have been involved in during 2012.

The key to financial success in a spine program is control of implant costs. To achieve spine implant standardization and optimal product pricing, St. Joseph's Hospital Health Center has used a bidding process to achieve those goals.

They began by identifying and partnering with strong physician champions, using a process that engages all neuro, spine, and ortho spine surgeons in its ownership. An obligatory RFP/bidding and product evaluation process was developed. The speakers will share lessons learned and the many challenges they faced during this process.

Following a successful session on orthopedic vendor negotiations at last year’s conference, Murray returns to describe techniques for engaging surgeons in a collaborative contract management approach to implant cost negotiations. You will learn the steps essential to conducting vendor product fairs during the product evaluation process.

The use of social media like Twitter and Facebook has exploded worldwide in the past five years. Although health care has been slow to engage this new communication modality, it is beginning to explore the possibilities and pitfalls of these new technologies.

In this session, the speaker will describe why healthcare providers must be aware of the social media conversation, even if they choose not to participate themselves, with a focus on the risks to patient privacy and confidentiality, the organization’s reputation, and more.

Using examples of situations where social media use hasn’t gone as planned—plus some where it has—this session will highlight policy elements individual providers and risk managers can put in place to ensure that they can take advantage of social media’s opportunities while limiting the impact of the risks.

Play a version of the popular TV game Jeopardy with this patient safety expert.

Using an innovative teaching method, Steelman will challenge you to identify interventions for prevention of surgical risks such as retained surgical items, surgical site infections, surgical fires, burns, and perioperative hypothermia.

Attendees will participate in discussions about the perioperative nurse’s role in the prevention of patient injuries. You will identify the top five patient safety issues in the perioperative setting as well as focusing on current prevention techniques.

You will learn about this innovative teaching method you can use with your staff during in-service and orientation programs.

A daily management system improves sustainability of performance improvement and allows for ongoing problem-solving, both for quick fixes and more complex change.

Initially, this organization identified a value stream—the flow of patients from the time surgery is scheduled to the patient’s discharge from the PACU. Using Lean methods, areas of waste were identified and targeted as intensive performance improvement projects.

You will learn how standard processes were developed and metrics established to monitor progress. The management team has standard work that they follow that includes daily rounds. The speakers will discuss how staff report daily, and variations are addressed immediately. They will share how they look for daily improvement, either in just do it problem-solving, or establishing a plan for more detailed issues through the use of scorecards to measure and sustain progress.

You will be able to identify areas in your institution to create standard work and associated metrics.

In recent years, items sterilized in ASCs have become more complex and present a significant challenge.

Reprocessing of reusable medical devices is becoming a larger focus with regulatory and accreditation survey processes.

The attention on sterile processing areas is part of the national focus on patient safety and reducing healthcare-acquired infections. Sterile processing areas differ in their physical design, location, equipment, as well as the level of personnel expertise, competence, and training.

Smaller facilities such as ASCs sometimes find it challenging to meet regulations with limited resources. This breakout will explore options in complying with requirements related to reprocessing reusable medical devices. Seavey will discuss current standards and recommendations and their application to the ASC.

As a new OR manager, you will be expected to keep physicians, staff, financial services, and administration happy while providing quality, safe patient care. You are expected to develop collaborative teams, manage meetings, enlist the help and compliance of physicians; all while using mature, professional communication.

This session will provide the tools you will need to maneuver your way through the jungle without being eaten alive. The speaker will provide techniques for working with surgeons and for developing collaborative teams. She will provide strategies for success that you will take home to use in your OR.

Historically, the OR staff believes it is a long way from the OR to the business office. In reality, the success of generating and collecting revenue from patients’ stay is linked to what the OR team does or doesn’t do. While patient care will always be the highest priority, it has increasingly become important for the OR staff to focus on revenue-cycle management.

Understanding the revenue process helps OR managers improve health care charging practices and enables them to make informed policy decisions. Integrating the knowledge of the revenue cycle processes can improve reimbursement and compliance with reporting requirements while reducing payer denials and decreasing rework..

You will learn about the ability to charge for extended recovery room time, preoperative time, the difference between bundled and unbillable items, medications that can or cannot be billed, and many other important OR revenue topics.

Are you confident in your ability to oversee your surgical first-assisting program?

For many ORs, surgical first assisting is a grey zone. Surgeons may bring in their partners or physician’s assistants (PA). Or the hospital may have invested in a surgical first-assisting program or contracted with independent providers.

Do you understand the multiple credentials for those that perform this service? Do you have the skills validation and credentialing process well in hand? If you have concerns in these areas, this breakout will offer you information and tools to ensure that you have control over this program.

This breakout is designed to define which credentialed personnel may perform the service, discuss best practices, and offer insights to raise standards for your surgical first-assisting program.

As the healthcare agenda changes and value-based purchasing is implemented, it is apparent that safety is no longer simply a quality issue but also a financial challenge. Northwestern Memorial Hospital (NMH) has developed a Safe Surgical Care Portfolio approach to improving the quality of care delivered to their surgical patients while being fiscally responsible.

A multidisciplinary team was convened to use DMAIC (define, measure, analyze, improve, control) methodology to address challenges and deliver measureable results. The team used Lean to evaluate workflow processes and develop a value-stream map. This process allowed them to identify variability due to the lack of standardization and knowledge.

This presentation will discuss challenges and opportunities that relate to implementation of improvements. The speakers will discuss activities to engage all disciplines in the process. They will also provide internal tools used to monitor compliance and identify opportunities for continued improvement.

Value analysis does not end with the purchase and introduction of a new product or technology. This session will describe closing the loop by conducting a follow-up review to reaffirm impact.

The speaker will describe how to build a process into your value-analysis program for follow-up on closed projects to review their impact and determine if there is a need to improve the review process.

Dolan will discuss how to identify your program’s standards of practice and evaluate if the standards were followed during the product evaluation process. He will discuss the communication of the follow-up review and the process to initiate a secondary review of products that don’t deliver on promised benefits, clinical utilization, and cost impact.

An ASC administrator who had a successful survey with only one deficiency will share how this ASC prepared and stays prepared for the CMS survey. She will provide tips and share tools used to help staff and physicians know what to expect for ASC survey.

During the session, you will hear what you need to do to prepare for a CMS survey visit. You will review the CMS surveyor tools.

The speaker will identify common CMS findings and discuss current regulatory requirements for an ASC.

You are a new manager, but you are looking ahead at your future career goals. Where do you want to go in your nursing career?

How do you prepare to reach your career goals? OR experience prepares nurses with unique knowledge and skills sets. This breakout will identify ideas and strategies that will enhance your success in finding the best-fit nursing position for you.

You will hear how to plan for reaching your career goals as well as the importance of evaluating the best career path for your skill set. You will explore future trends and roles for OR nurses in the challenging health care arena.

Never before has it been more critical for nurses in leadership roles to articulate their value in the care of patients. Many affairs of the heart remain hidden; ours no longer can.

In the course of your career, have you ever wondered why you were drawn to nursing leadership? Better yet, why you continually fall in love with our profession again and again? These speakers will highlight the many affairs of the heart in which nurse leaders engage during their careers. As a profession, nurses are crafting their role as key stakeholders in a newly emerging health care system. Whose voice is heard in its redesign is still undecided.

These two nursing leaders will describe why nurse leaders must be able to articulate their value. They will discuss the tools that nurse leaders and managers must possess to advocate and influence the care of patients.

Any journey starts with planning, and in this case the planning is the contract to do business with a company and its representatives. The University of Virginia uses this time to sit down with vendor representatives and talk about the rules of engagement, which include perioperative services as well as supply chain and contracting.

At this time, details about the price the facility is willing to pay for a product, and what support and education are expected to be provided. In addition, behavior expected from the vendor representatives when they are in the facility is discussed.

The speaker will share details of the process they use to partner with vendors. She will share tools for monitoring the process and describe the swift action that takes place if policies are not followed. She will share the web-based comprehensive new device request form they have developed, which also includes a training assessment tool that guides the educational efforts related to new devices.

Reducing risk of sharps injuries for all perioperative team members is a critical element of ensuring patient safety. This presentation will provide insight into methods to use the AORN Sharps Safety Toolkit to set up and implement a sharps safety program in any type of surgical suite.

The speakers will discuss ways to overcome the challenges of noncommitted team members. They will share facility checklists to ensure readiness for an OSHA survey for sharps safety compliance.

You will hear tips for adapting existing toolkit educational presentations to meet the needs in your hospital and suggestions for maximizing the benefits of the AORN Sharps Safety Toolkit.

The speakers will also provide information on current trends in sharps injury statistics.

Medicare’s new hospital value-based purchasing (VBP) program represents a fundamental shift in how hospitals and other providers will be paid for their services. Starting October 1, 2012, part of your hospital’s Medicare DRG payments will be based on how well the hospital scores on a set of quality measures and on patients’ experience of care.

VBP requires important changes in how your hospital manages its operations and clinical processes and aligns with the interests of physicians. Perioperative managers and staff have a critical role in influencing their hospital’s VBP scores.
The scores will be based on performance on a set of clinical measures and patients’ experience of care as measured by the HCAHPS (Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems) survey. In the first year, surgery is front and center because most of the clinical measures are from the Surgical Care Improvement Project (SCIP).

The speakers will explain how VPB scores will be calculated and the potential financial impact. They will also preview new features for the program’s second year. They will suggest ways you can engage your staff to support the hospital’s effort to achieve high performance.

Successful people in business, health care, politics, and life in general have something in common. They understand that humor is an important trait for effective leaders.

Ronald Reagan was a master at using humor on the world stage. The characters in M*A*S*H used humor to retain their sanity amid horrendous conditions. And you can learn how to use humor effectively in your daily work.

Karen Buxman joins us again to send you home with laughter as well as learning about effective humor in the workplace. Hear her use hysterical personal anecdotes, solid medical research, and practical tips to help you enhance your humor skills in the service of better leadership.