AORN Works Helps Healthcare Leadership Reduce Risk

November, 2008 - A recent move by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has hospitals nationwide double-checking safety procedures and retracing steps to reduce patient risk.

Last fall, the CMS published a Final Rule, updating its inpatient prospective payment system. One major aspect of that Final Rule adds a provision to the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 that prohibits Medicare from making additional payments for certain hospital- acquired conditions (HACs).

The eight HACs covered in the Final Rule, effective Oct. 1, 2008, include:
• Air embolism
• Blood incompatibility
• Catheter-associated urinary tract infection
• Falls/trauma
• Objects or instruments left inside the body during surgery
• Pressure ulcers
• Surgical site infection after coronary artery bypass graft
• Vascular catheter-associated infection

Without support from Medicare, legal liability becomes an even greater issue in the healthcare industry.

“Now more than ever, hospitals nationwide must make HAC prevention and infection control a top priority,” said Vicki Faas, general manager of AORN Works. “This is especially true in the perioperative department — operating room, central sterile, pre-op area and recovery room — where life-threatening risk is often hidden beneath life-saving treatment.”

Speaking from experience, no one knows the O.R. better than AORN Works. Our team of expert consultants draws from more than 80 years of combined experience in perioperative departments near and abroad. We are nurses and physicians. Teachers and administrators. Patients and practitioners.

Throughout our five-year history, we’ve provided effective consulting services to a number of perioperative facilities including hospitals, specialty surgical hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers across the country.

AORN Works began as Opportunity, a department within the Association of periOperative Registered Nurses (AORN) specializing in consulting services. In 2003,
AORN invested in the transformation of Opportunity, creating AORN Management Solutions, an independently operated subsidiary.

Today, AORN Management Solutions is known as AORN Works.

And it does.

“I found out about AORN Works by word-of-mouth,” said Deb Ryan, a recent client. “Someone in my organization had used their services before and was pleased, so I contacted them. The experience was so smooth. No mix-ups. No hassle. Just great results.”

AORN Works for you. AORN Works to provide positive outcomes. AORN Works as an authority on all things O.R. Our team is so attuned to what a healthy perioperative department looks like, we can walk through your double-doors and immediately note areas for improvement.

We call it an operational assessment, or “Fresh Eyes Tour.”

And we don’t stop there.

AORN Works is also a premier interim management and permanent placement service. Once we diagnose the operational needs of your perioperative department, we present recommendations and an action plan for implementation. However, our consulting engagements don’t end when we walk out your door as we can provide an interim leader to help apply our recommendations.

“I’ve worked on behalf of AORN Works to help provide surgical service support and OR nurses for several hospitals, and I’ve always received positive feedback,” said Suzanne Clemons, an interim assistant vice president of Surgical Services. “These places aren’t just clients. AORN Works doesn’t look at them like that at all. We’re talking about the business of saving lives. Self-improvement is requisite for success in this field.”

In March 2008, AORN Works provided an operational assessment for St. Francis Regional Medical Center in Shakopee, Minn. The assessment included comprehensive examination of the center’s perioperative services, from staff productivity to clinical practice and patient safety.

Through tours and reviews, observations and interviews, AORN Works mapped out a plan for St. Francis to make across-the-board improvements to its perioperative
department. All told, the consultation spanned four weeks, and afterward, AORN Works provided interim management staff to help St. Francis follow through on the consultation.

“We’re much better for it,” said Ryan, St. Francis’ Vice President of Patient Care Services. “AORN Works’ staff was professional, timely and knowledgeable, and the
temporary manager they provided is amazing. I would recommend them to any of my associates in the healthcare business.”

And today, even as the CMS Final Rule goes into effect and pressure mounts on medical settings, both great and small, AORN Works is preparing a six-month review with St. Francis, intended to make sure the changes and improvements made in Shakopee, Minn., stick.

“Following through with our clients is of paramount importance,” Faas said. “If you point out the problems and don’t provide a solution, you’re not making progress. On the other hand, if you provide a solution and don’t follow it through, you’re not making progress either. Consultation and placement are our primary services, but follow-up is part and parcel of that.”