Rethinking Surgical Safety

Anticipating surgery is nerve-racking enough for a patient and her family—and that’s without added worries that her operating room team might be feeling frantic in the moments leading up to her procedure. Eager to “slow down” and spend time where it matters most, UR Medicine’s Perioperative faculty and staff have joined forces with their academic medical colleagues from MCIC Vermont, a hospital-owned liability insurer.

For Nurses, Many Hands (and a Single Handoff Tool) Make Safe Work

There’s no arguing that a big job whose tasks are divvied up among many people goes faster than if one person tackles it. But making the pieces of those tasks come back together unruffled can be tricky when they’re complex, as health issues often are. As of March, nurses at UR Medicine’s Strong Memorial and Highland Hospitals added a handoff tool in eRecord to their proverbial tool belts. The tool aggregates vital patient info--snapping together the pieces of her story for a clean handoff.

Surgical Oncology Patients Welcomed to New 5th Floor Wilmot ‘Hotel’

This spring the Wilmot Cancer Center opened the final floor of its vertical expansion, a space dedicated to post-surgical oncology patients who typically stay for two to seven days. On paper, this is a 27,000-square-foot light-filled space with 28 private rooms. But the experience of seeing it has the wow factor of a well-appointed hotel.

URMC Team Helps Nursing Home Referrals Go Electronic, Makes Relics of Fax Machines

It’s electric! Boogie woogie. Over the past year or so, a pioneering team made up of staff from Strong Memorial Hospital, Highland Hospital, Highlands at Brighton, Highlands Living Center, and ePartner planned and implemented the capability to refer patients electronically to nursing homes across Monroe County. Talk about an “Electric Slide”!

‘UPP’ and Running: Care Improvement Program Melds URMC’s Biggest Priorities

Just a month ago, Strong Memorial Hospital rolled out the “Unit-based Performance Program” (UPP), a major initiative that will—by braiding the three together—help inpatient units better coordinate their improvement efforts around 1) patient safety, 2) the ICARE experience, and 3) operational efficiency.