Swarm Intelligence to Face IoT Challenges.

The Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm denotes billions of physical entities connected to Internet that allow the collecting and sharing of big amounts of data. Everything may become a component of the IoT thanks to advancements in hardware, software, and wireless network availability. Devices get an advanced level of digital intelligence that enables them to transmit real-time data without applying for human support.

Developing strategies for on-call staffing: a working guideline for safe practices.

Effective on-call clinical staffing is critical to providing perioperative services to patients requiring emergency surgical care. Without careful monitoring of continuous work hours and hours worked per week, staffing practices can adversely affect the ability of personnel to function and provide care. Managers and perioperative personnel must carefully evaluate their on-call schedule to ensure the provision of safe medical care for their patients.

Perioperative employee annual evaluations: a 30-second process.

In response to complaints about the annual evaluation tool used at The Community Hospital in Munster, Indiana, the surgical services management team created a tool to rate the perioperative RNs on skills pertinent to the surgical services department. The hospital-wide evaluation tool uses vague criteria, which are regularly challenged by employees who disagree with their manager's evaluation. The new Surgical Services Employee Evaluation takes a manager approximately 30 seconds to complete and can be added to the generic hospital evaluation form to make the employee evaluation more accurate and meaningful.

World-class OR turnaround times: secrets uncovered.

One of the aspects of OR service that is most important to surgeons is quick OR turnaround times. Perioperative staff members and one orthopedic surgeon at the Community Hospital, Munster, Ind, have developed an innovative approach to the OR turnaround process that considerably increases efficiency and reduces average turnaround times. By assigning specific tasks to each perioperative team member, scheduling surgical procedures in order based on type of procedure, and drawing on individual team members' traits, the orthopedic surgeon is able to perform more procedures than other orthopedic surgeons in that facility in the same amount of time, which increases revenue for the hospital.