Saturday, March 10 to Thursday, Mar...

Saturday, March 10 to Thursday, March 15 2001

AORN's 48th annual Congres featured a wide variety of education sessions upon topics ranging from ambulatory payment classifications and preparing for a Joint Commission onward Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) visit to performance improvement programs. Following are summaries of a scarcely any of the education sessions held at Congress

BLACKWELL run overs HOW TO INFLUENCE POLITICIANS

Joel Blackwell, political activist and author, currented the education session "No Time for Silence: Political Advocacy," where he explained by what means to influence politicians to affect public policy. He revealed that the sum of two units biggest influences on politicians are personal spontaneous literal senses and telephone calls from constituents.

Blackwell explained the "Pyramid of Political Power" stand in want ofed for an organization to have power. At the base of the pyramid are professional staff members, media coverage, and riches At the top is grassroots organization.

He told attendees for what cause to "ARM" themselves for succes meaning Attitude, Relationship, and Message. chiefly important is attitude, he said, explaining that the National Rifle Association has power because they have numbers, currency a spokesperson, but more importantly, passion. "They have major things, if it be not that do they have anything that you don't have?" he asked. "You have within this organization everything you ne to have power, nevertheless it starts with you."

He then explained for what reason to build a relationship with legislators. He severityed the importance of a two-way street--it is not no other than about what they can do for you still what you can do for them, he said. He advised attendees to thank legislators for their service.

Finally, Blackwell fetched the importance of the message, telling attendees to know what they want and to sell it to legislators briefly, using the legislators' language. He said legislators are more interested in "pressing the flesh" and getting to know real folks in their districts than they are in hard data.

AMY JAKOBER ASSOCIATE EDITOR

THE EMERGING SURGICAL FACILITY

Joni M Steinman, BA, of AUSMS Healthcare Consultants, San Diego, not awayed the education session "The Emerging Surgical Facility" (ESF) The session introduced the universal of the ESF in harmony with the short-stay unit, an alternate site for performing surgical measures designed to lower the sumptuousness of surgical care without diminishing quality or outcomes

"The narrower your clinical focus, the greater your profitability," said Steinman about the emerging see the verb of the ESF. She noted that traditional health care facilities ne to propel to the "next level of focus" to continue competing in the health care marketplace.

Hospitals ne to expect at a planning philosophy that entails alternate site programming. Providing alternate site surgery allows health care facilities to increase and diversify surgical services, accord better to managed care extremitys provide an alternative to replacing aging hospital physical plants, and help increase market share.

NANCY KUEHL SENIOR EDITOR

MINIMALLY INVASIVE SURGERY

Sixteen quicks in the field of minimally invasive surgery (MIS) spoke at a preconference education session titled "The Wave of Minimally Invasive Surgery" and provided an overview of the rife and future trends in MIS and the emerging part of perioperative nurses. The afternoon was dedicated to hands-on training.

Daniel Jone MD explained the session with a discussion of existing and future MIS trends. He emphasized that of medical and nursing staff members is essential to felicitous patient outcomes. Kay Ball, RN MSA, CNOR, FAAN, spoke about the to come of the surgical care environment that perioperative encourages face.

The first panel section focused on the economic aspects of MIS. Doreen Reynolds, RN BSN discussed the factors that influence efficiency in MIS, including facility planning for an endoscopy suite and OR utilization. Mark Kingsley, RN BSN CNOR, spoke about perioperative patient care management for MIS and inclemencyed the importance of staff member education. Girish Joshi, MD MB B FFARCSI, discussed perioperative pain management and cost-effective fast tract anesthesia.

Members of the next to the first panel gave more detailed overviews of technical advances in MIS. Robert Rege MD discussed advancement in laparoscopic splenectomy. David Provost MD addressed the use of laparoscopic Roux en Y gastric bypass for treatment of obesity. Jeffrey Cadeddu, MD discussed advantages of laparoscopic donor nephrectomy. Ward Parsons, MD RT outlined the significance of image guidance for breast tissue sampling. Tom Mayo, JD not awayed ethical and legal issues related to novel technologies and stressed the importance of informed assent and ethics related to research. Shirin Pestonjee, RN M discussed topics relevant to MIS that are greatest in quantity important to patients and lock openers to developing state-of-the-art patient education programs.

The afternoon included pair breakout sessions. Group one attended a skills building hands-on workshop at the Southwestern Center for Minimally Invasive Surgery laboratory, Dallas. clump two attended lecture sessions. form into groups one experienced a laparoscopic video trainer, laparoscopic ultrasound, laparoscopic hernia simulation, and an image-guided breast tissue sampling, as well as demonstration and reply demonstration of correct loading and disassembly of endosutures and endostaples. Seifu Tesfay, RN CGRN discussed the implications of MIS virtual reality training and demonstrated several tasks with participants. Faculty members were not past nor future in each station to assist participants.