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10 Benefits of Documenting Employee Performance

1.Master progressive discipline and effectively structure terminations. 2.Draft warnings, discipline and termination documents—the right way. 3.Save time and remove the anxiety from the discipline-documentation process. 4.Build confidence in your writing skills and improve your standing within the organization. 5.Shift responsibility for improvement away from the organization and back to the employee (where it rightfully belongs!). […]

Customizing feedback: The 9 different personality types

Ever notice how you can say the same exact thing to two different people, and they each take the comment completely differently? A manager’s “great suggestion” to one employee could be seen as “rude meddling” by another. The effectiveness of your feedback isn’t solely dependent on how it’s given. The other important half is how […]

In recent years, the growth of healthcare spending has slowed not only in the U.S. but also globally. In a viewpoint article published in The Journal of the American Medical Association, Commonwealth Fund Senior Researcher David Squires explores potential reasons for the deceleration. Here are five things to know about healthcare spending growth. 1. Healthcare […]

Effect of intra-articular local anesthesia on articular cartilage in the knee

Published in Arthroscopy. 2014 May;30(5):607-12 Authors: Ravnihar K et al. PURPOSE: To evaluate the hypothetical toxic effect of local anesthetics on the articular cartilage using patient data from autologous chondrocyte cultivation with different anesthesia types used for arthroscopic cartilage biopsy specimen procurement. METHODS: A retrospective analysis of patient data from the national autologous chondrocyte implantation […]

Intravenous Lidocaine for the Emergency Department Treatment of Acute Radicular Low Back Pain, a Randomized Controlled Trial

Published in J Emerg Med. 2014 Jul;47(1):119-24 Authors: Tanen DA et al BACKGROUND: Acute radicular back pain is a frequent complaint of patients presenting to the Emergency Department. STUDY OBJECTIVE: Determine the efficacy of intravenous lidocaine when compared to ketorolac for the treatment of acute radicular low back pain. METHODS: Randomized double-blind study of 41 […]

Novel Hydrocodone: 24-Hour Analgesia, Less Abuse Potential

A new extended-release formulation of hydrocodone that has antiabuse properties has been shown to provide safe and long-lasting pain relief in a variety of patients with chronic pain, including those who have used opioids before and those who are opioid-naive. It may also be much less appealing to would-be hydrocodone abusers, according to new research. […]

SPECT/CT for the correct diagnosis of back pain

A SPECT/CT scan can help interventionalists determine the best course of treatment for lower back pain, according to a study presented last week at the annual meeting of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging. The researchers found that three times more patients achieved 70 percent to 100 percent pain relief after being managed […]

Anesthesia Management: 2 million Obamacre enrollees have data problems

About 2.2 million people, or more than one in every four Americans who signed up for private health coverage under President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform law, have inconsistent data in their applications that could lead to them losing coverage in isolated cases, officials said. Republicans, who have made the law known as Obamacare a top […]

Anesthesia Management: The Cost of Surgical Site Infections

I thought our readers should know this information since we often give antibiotics either preop or intraop. Authors: Schweizer ML et al., JAMA 2014 May 21; The mean attributable cost of surgical site infections in the Veterans Affairs system in 2010 was $11,876. With today’s emphasis on improving healthcare quality while decreasing cost, understanding the […]

Anesthesia Management: Intensive Care Unit to Inpatient Hospice — It Can Work

This is important for our readers because so many of our followers work in the ICU beside just surgery. Authors: Binney ZO et al., Crit Care Med 2014 May 42:1074 Investigators describe a process by which ICU patients were transferred successfully to inpatient hospice care. In the U.S., 10% to 20% of patients admitted to […]