ASC Industry News

Check out these articles for some of the latest hot topics in ASC Industry News:

Behind Closed Doors Only an OR Nurse Would Understand

No one really understands what we do on a daily basis — and sometimes we barely understand it ourselves. For example, we worry if our patient hasn’t peed after surgery, then we realize we haven’t peed in 12 hours. Here are 5 things I’m pretty sure only make sense to us surgical nurses.

Source: Outpatient Surgery

Thinking of Buying…. Big Screen Monitors

If the only thing keeping you from joining the big-screen revolution is the concern that a 55-inch display would overwhelm your already crowded OR, here’s good news: A big-screen monitor can actually give you more room and reduce clutter. How’s that?

Source: Outpatient Surgery

Is That Scope Clean? Verify It

That flexible endoscope certainly looks clean. As well it should. The reprocessing tech leak tested the scope, flushed and brushed the internal channels, and ran it through the automated endoscope reprocessor for the proper cycle. After an alcohol purge and air drying, it’s now back in the procedure room, ready to use on the next patient. Or is it?

Source: Outpatient Surgery

CMS Proposes Regulatory Burden Reduction Measures

As ASCA announced on September 18, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has released its proposed rule “Regulatory Provisions to Promote Program Efficiency, Transparency, and Burden Reduction.” Of note, CMS has proposed to remove the requirement for ASCs to have a transfer agreement or that all ASC physicians have admitting privileges with a local hospital. ASCA has long sought relief for ASCs who cannot get a transfer agreement from hospitals for purely competitive reasons and appreciates that CMS is addressing that issue in this rule. In addition, CMS has proposed significant changes to medical history and physical assessment (H&P) requirements, essentially replacing them with “requirements that defer, to a certain extent, to the ASC policy and operating physician’s clinical judgment to ensure that patients receive the appropriate presurgical assessments tailored to the patient and the type of surgery being performed.”

In addition, CMS has proposed to reduce many of the requirements for emergency preparedness in ASCs. If finalized, CMS would allow ASCs to review the emergency plan every two years instead of annually, require training every two years instead of annually (or when the emergency plan is significantly updated) and require only one testing exercise per year instead of two.

Source: ASCA

Plastic Screening Trays at Airports Pose Highest Risk of Transmitting Respiratory Viruses

International and national travelling has made the rapid spread of infectious diseases possible. Little information is available on the role of major traffic hubs, such as airports, in the transmission of respiratory infections, including seasonal influenza and a pandemic threat.

Source: Infection Control Today