Surgical Information Systems Recognizes Clients for Financial, Clinical, and Operational Improvements

2012 Perioperative Leadership Awards presented at annual user conference

ATLANTA, May 14, 2012 /PRNewswire/

Surgical Information Systems (“SIS”), a leader in perioperative information systems, recently honored clients demonstrating outstanding leadership in achieving clinical, financial, and operational goals using perioperative software solutions.  Announced at SIS Congress, the company’s annual client conference, the 2012 SIS Perioperative Leadership Awards were presented to five hospital systems exemplifying the innovative use of information technology to improve their perioperative and anesthesia operations.

“SIS clients continue to impress us year after year with the results achieved through the use of the SIS Solution to support their goals of providing better patient care, improving financial return, and streamlining operational processes,” said SIS CEO Ed Daihl. “We have truly outstanding clients and we are honored to recognize them for their innovation and leadership.”

Awards were given to the following institutions:

St. Clair Hospital – Pittsburgh, PA
Patient Impact Award
This award recognized the perioperative staff at St. Clair for their success in improving communication across their team. St. Clair developed questionnaires, workflow wizards, custom forms and reports to document specific data elements for use in quality reporting. By implementing these practices, St. Clair was able to reduce surgical site infections and met Joint Commission requirements to provide patients with up-to-date medication lists.

O’Connor Hospital – San Jose, CA
Financial Achievement Award
O’Connor Hospital used SIS Analytics and Rules Based Charging to improve their financial performance, generating top-line growth in orthopedic service, improving charge process, increased gross revenue capture, and improved operational efficiency. O’Connor Hospital reduced cost per case for high volume procedures such as total joints and other service lines.

Holy Spirit Hospital – Camp Hill, PA
Winning Team Award
The team at Holy Spirit leveraged the configurable SIS solution to redesign intraoperative documentation to match end-user workflow and to create workflow wizards to streamline OR scheduling. Additionally, the team’s implementation and use of SIS Rules Based Charging resulted in a 6% increase in revenue in the first quarter of 2012. These changes improved efficiency while supporting patient safety goals.

University of California Irvine Medical Center – Irvine, CA
Advancing Anesthesia Award
As a SIS development partner, the Department of Anesthesiology at the University of California, Irvine, (UCI) aided in the advancement of various perioperative tools that support the practice of anesthesiology. UCI assisted with the development of SIS OR View, a tool that enhances perioperative communication within the operating room between all staff involved in a surgical procedure.

In addition, the UCI team also established rules and alerts using SIS’ patient tracking tool, SIS Com, focused around anesthetic milestones such as induction times and patient arrival. Finally, UCI developed a new data compliance view for SIS Analytics Anesthesia View to ensure that the anesthesiologist and circulating nurse capture all of the required data and milestones.  

Huntsville Hospital – Huntsville, AL
Perioperative Leader of the Year
The Perioperative Leader of the Year award recognized Huntsville Hospital as a leader in the industry for their contribution on several perioperative IT initiatives. Driven by a culture that encourages innovation, Huntsville Hospital understands the unique clinical and fiscal contributions of the perioperative department to the entire health system and they have continually stressed the need for integrated data flow. The team at Huntsville works closely with the SIS team providing feedback and additional resources in order to improve SIS solutions for current and future clients.

According to Rick Corn, Vice President and CIO of Huntsville Hospital System, “In our experience, SIS has proven to be a valuable and responsive partner. The Huntsville team requires the best tools to help deliver high quality care in the most efficient way possible and we are pleased to be recognized with the SIS 2012 Perioperative Leader of the Year Award. This award illustrates the teamwork and innovation we have achieved with our SIS relationship. I am proud of the Huntsville team and their focus on consistently improving our integrated processes and clinical outcomes.”

SIS Congress gives attendees the opportunity to participate in client and industry-led educational sessions, workshops, and networking events while interacting with other users of the SIS Solution and SIS associates.

About SIS

Surgical Information Systems (“SIS”) provides software solutions that are uniquely designed to add value at every point of the perioperative process. Developed specifically for the complex surgical environment, all SIS solutions – including anesthesia – are architected on a single database and integrate easily with other hospital systems. SIS offers the only surgical scheduling system and the only anesthesia information management system endorsed by the American Hospital Association (AHA), and analytics and rules-based charging products that have been granted Peer Reviewed status by the Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA). SIS is also the first AIMS provider to be designated as an AQI Preferred Vendor by the Anesthesia Quality Institute (AQI).

For more information visit our website, www.SISFirst.com.

SOURCE Surgical Information Systems

Article Featured on: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/surgical-information-systems-recognizes-clients-for-financial-clinical-and-operational-improvements-151447175.html

Chancellor Drake Leads Academic Visit to Israel

Representatives of UC Irvine led by Chancellor Michael Drake left Thursday, March 22, to visit four top universities in Israel. The effort to foster faculty, student and research exchanges builds on similar collaborations with institutions in South Korea, Norway, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Japan, China and Vietnam, among others.

Joining the chancellor are Kenneth Janda, physical sciences dean; Gregory Washington, engineering dean; and Dr. Zeev Kain, associate dean for clinical operations and chair of the Department of Anesthesiology & Perioperative Care in UCI’s School of Medicine.

The delegation will tour the following universities in Israel:

• Ben-Gurion University of the Negev: Located in the desert, it shares with UCI an expertise in water issues, nanotechnology and medicine. Many programs are conducted in English.
• Technion – Israel Institute of Technology: The oldest university in Israel is, like UCI, world-renowned for multidisciplinary engineering research, nanotechnology innovation and alternative energy development. It boasts three Nobel laureates in chemistry, with wins in 2004 and 2011.
• Hebrew University of Jerusalem: It’s the best institution of higher learning in Israel and 57th globally, according to the Academic Ranking of World Universities. Its impressive book and manuscript collection includes Albert Einstein’s personal papers.
• Tel Aviv University: Founded four decades ago, it has been deemed No. 2 in Israel by the Academic Ranking of World Universities and has a rich history of international student exchange and research excellence, particularly in engineering and the arts and humanities.

— University Communications

UCI Feature: http://www.uci.edu/features/2012/03/feature_israeltrip_120322.php

Society for Technology in Anesthesia (STA) Annual Meeting 2012

The Society for Technology in Anesthesia (STA) is an international organization that focuses to improve the quality of patient care through the growing innovations of technology that is anesthesia related.

The STA 2012 Annual Meeting took place in West Palm Beach, Florida on January 18 -21, 2012. Our very own, Maxime Cannesson, MD, was the Chairman of this meeting. Also in attendance representing our department was, Joseph Rinehart, MD, Shermeen Vakharia, MD, Ryan Nageotte, MD, and Eric Yan, MD.

The main topics covered during this event were related to automated anesthesia, robotic anesthesia, and information technologies in the perioperative setting as well as patient safety. In addition, the meeting held a joint session with FAER and STA in order to promote entrepreneurism and research in technology and anesthesia.

The meeting was a great success with about 230+ people attended the meeting and our department was well represented. Dr. Rinehart lectured on automated perioperative fluid management and hemodynamic optimization, Dr. Vakharia participated in an AIMS workshop, and Drs. Nageotte and Yan presented abstracts. In addition, Dr Cannesson gave a lecture on non-invasive fluid responsiveness assessment.

This meeting was a demonstration of how well positioned is our Department in the field of new technologies applied to Anesthesia!

Analyzing the Sharp End of Health Care

Greg Gillespie
HDM Breaking News, November 16, 2011

Perioperative services account for a huge chunk of hospital revenue, but they also account for a sizable slice of costs and medical errors. At the University of California–Irvine Medical Center, perioperative and anesthesia services were managed with rudimentary information technologies when Zeev Kain, M.D., came on board in 2008 as chairman of anesthesiology and perioperative care.

“We were basically at a horse and carriages stage with the I.T.—you had an OR environment where everything was state-of-the art but anesthesiologists were still using pen and paper to record what they did, and due to various workflow disruptions there was very little correlation between what they wrote down and what actually occurred,” Kain says. “To manage the OR we had to rely on green boards and mix of data that really didn’t provide insights into how to manage surgeries efficiently and ensure patient safety processes were being followed.”

One of the conditions for Kain accepting the position was the guarantee that the medical center would install a perioperative information system. The system—from Surgical Information Systems—went live in 2008 and UC-Irvine has since added a number of modules, including an analytics module a well as applications for clinical documentation for anesthesia, inter-operative and post-operative care, and a surgeon preference app.

All that makes for a lot of data, which can be analyzed in an “infinite” number of ways, says David Keymel, R.N., manager of perioperative/anesthesiology/cardiology informatics. “One danger from my perspective is that I get into the data and few hours pass by without me even noticing,” he says. “There are a number of preloaded views that come with the product, but I can add or delete fields depending on what we want to look at. And at this point we’re analyzing that data flow on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.”

UC-Irvine’s focus has been on identifying the breakpoints that create financial and clinical inefficiencies. Chief among the process issues has been getting the OR in order for first case on-time starts. Oftentimes surgeries were delayed because rooms were not prepared, surgeon preference cards weren’t in order, and pre-operative antibiotics weren’t administered on time.

By drilling down through the delay codes logged for late procedures, UC-Irvine reconstructed its processes to address those breakdowns. First case on-time starts (“a data point every OR is looking at right now,” Keymel says) are more than 90 percent on a daily basis, compared with 60 percent before the analytics were brought online. Room turnover times also were reduced by 30 percent thanks to process improvements.

When the perioperative system first went live, the focus was to use the information to get the house in order, Kain says. From his perch as chairman, room turnover times and first-case on time starts are critical business components, as are billing and reporting quality measures from the Surgical Care Improvement Project (SCIP) required by CMS. “I’m looking at the clinical and administrative data points that help me make the OR service better,” he says. “Knowing what actually happened on a real-time basis, with every part of the process time-stamped, means you have a real opportunity to increase revenue and decrease paperwork.” In that vein, he points to 50 percent reduction in coding staff devoted to anesthesia billing, a significant decline in AR days, and a reduction in post-surgical time to submit a bill, which went from two weeks to under 24 hours.

That said, business and clinical efficiencies often go hand-in-hand. “While I’m focusing on those issues, we have other staff that are living in those analytics to ensure those process improvements are improving our clinical performance.”

The SCIP measures are a case in point. While the measures are tied to payment, their purpose is to increase patient safety. One measure is a patient’s body post-operative body temperature. The danger is that many patients under anesthesia become hypothermic during surgery, a situation that has a significant impact on outcomes—studies estimate that even mild hypothermia causes higher post-op infection rates and an increase in blood transfusions and assisted ventilation.

Keymel says that UC-Irvine is starting to get a “clinical effect” by tracking post-op documentation to analyze outcomes, including SCIP measurements such as body temperature, nausea and vomiting, and blood loss. For example, looking through anesthesia type and outcomes might show that certain inhalation agents commonly cause post-op vomiting, data which is provided to anesthesiologists to analyze. UC-Irvine plans to ramp up its clinical analytics program as it gets more retrospective data into the system, Keymel adds.

Article Published in Health Data Management: http://www.healthdatamanagement.com/news/UC-Irvine-perioperative-anesthesia-IT-43626-1.html

University HealthSystems Consortium

Debra E. Morrison, MD

UHC (University HealthSystems Consortium), an organization of university hospitals designed to pool resources, create economies of scale, improve clinical and operating efficiences, and influence the direction and delivery of health care, met in September 20-23 in Chicago. The meeting was well-represented by UCI Medical Center. Kristi Hare, RN, NP and Debra Morrison, MD presented a poster on our sedation program, which was considered by CMS and The Joint Commission to be a national model. UHC has long been at least peripherally interested in sedation through its involvement in outcomes measurements, and the poster did create interest and questions. Hare and Morrison also attended small group sessions presented by other hospitals, which have completed unique process improvement projects and an informative session on preparation for The Joint Commission survey. The UCI group also attended a UHC banquet at Navy Pier.

On October 1, in Las Vegas, Hare and Morrison were keynote speakers opening the national meeting for ARIN (Association of Radiology and Imaging Nurses), speaking for an hour on creating a model sedation program. The talk generated excited responses from the nurses attending the meeting, in that nurses were urged to “stop the line!” when they feel that physicians are not paying attention to the patient’s well-being during a procedure, as illustrated by an old “I Love Lucy” film clip.

Dr. Zeev Kain Interviewed on CNN

CNN interviewed Dr. Zeev Kain, chairman of UC Irvine’s Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Care, about the proper use of the drug propofol. The interview is part of CNN’s coverage of the criminal trial of Michael Jackson’s personal doctor, whose use of powerful anesthesia drugs is alleged to have caused the singer’s death.

Kain emphasized that drugs like propofol should only be administered in a hospital setting by someone trained to monitor their effects on patients. They should only be used “when you want to medically induce a coma or sedation in a hospital. You have to monitor somebody’s blood pressure, heart rate, how well they are breathing. You have to monitor their oxygen level. That’s the bottom line,” Kain said.

The interview can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJcCFAxTXqg&feature=colike.

Important monitoring of heart performance is omitted in two-thirds of high-risk surgical operations

Only 35% of anaesthesiologists are carrying out a simple procedure during high-risk surgery that can make a significant impact on how well patients recover from their operations, according to new research presented today (Sunday 12 June) at the European Anaesthesiology Congress in Amsterdam.

A survey of 463 randomly selected European and US anaesthesiologists found that although more than 95% of them knew that it was of major importance that enough oxygen reached all parts of the body during an operation and that this was determined by how well the heart was pumping blood around the body, 65% of them were failing to monitor the amount of blood the heart was pumping – a procedure known as cardiac output monitoring.

As a result of their findings, the authors of the study, led by Dr Maxime Cannesson, an Associate Professor of Anaesthesiology at the University of California, Irvine (USA), are calling for action at national and international level to ensure that cardiac output monitoring is carried out for all high-risk surgical operations.

The numbers of operations affected are significant. High-risk surgery represents about 10-14% of all the 240 million surgeries performed each year worldwide, meaning that about 30 million patients in the world are undergoing high-risk surgery every year. Examples of high-risk surgery include operations on the liver, pancreas, aorta (the largest artery in the body), most cancer surgery, and orthopaedic surgery, for instance on the spine or for hip fractures.

Dr Cannesson said: “Several studies have shown that when anaesthesiologists measure and then set goals for cardiac output during high-risk surgery, their patients will have fewer postoperative complications, a shorter stay in the hospital after the surgery, and fewer of them will die in the postoperative period. The idea is very simple: since oxygen is of major importance to the body when it is experiencing stress, as in the case of high-risk surgery, it seems logical that setting goals for maximising the delivery of oxygen to the tissues would improve patients’ care. Oxygen is used by the cells in order to produce energy and to fight the stress. If the cells and tissues do not receive oxygen during the surgery, they are going to produce toxins, which will eventually worsen the situation and increase postoperative complications such as infection, kidney failure, pneumonia, and so forth. It’s like running a marathon at high altitudes where there is very little oxygen: you get short of breath very quickly and soon you’ll develop chest pain and expose your body to high risk if you do not stop running.”

There are three main parameters that anaesthesiologists measure to check on oxygen delivery: levels of haemoglobin (the iron-containing, oxygen-carrying protein in red blood cells), oxygen saturation (how much oxygen the blood is carrying), and the cardiac output. Haemoglobin levels are usually checked regularly during high-risk surgery; continuous measuring of oxygen saturation is compulsory during anaesthesia in all European countries; but, as this study shows, cardiac output monitoring does not happen on a regular basis. “Yet, if cardiac output is not measured there is no way to know whether oxygen is delivered appropriately to the tissues or not,” said Dr Cannesson.

“Our study shows that there is a need for action by national and international professional societies to ensure that cardiac output monitoring is used in clinical practice for these patients. There should be a European and US task force that comes up with recommendations regarding all haemodynamic monitoring [monitoring of blood flow] during surgery in order to improve the care of patients,” he said.

The main reasons given for not monitoring cardiac output were: the cardiac output monitors were too invasive; anaesthesiologists were using a surrogate for cardiac output monitoring such as checking variations in pulse pressure; and 30% of respondents believed that cardiac monitoring did not provide important information.

Dr Cannesson said: “The last reason is interesting given that nearly all of them say that they know that oxygen delivery is of major importance and that cardiac output is involved in oxygen delivery!”

He said that current cardiac output monitoring was no longer as invasive as it used to be when it involved a catheter inserted into the pulmonary artery. Nowadays, there were several, minimally invasive ways of doing it. Furthermore, using surrogates such as pulse pressure variations, could not substitute for cardiac output measurements. “They have not been shown to improve patients’ outcome and can only be used in 40% of patients under anaesthesia. They are excellent adjuncts to cardiac output monitoring, and should be included in the clinical management wherever possible, but they should not replace it,” he said.

Now Dr Cannesson and colleagues are running a multi-centre study in California focusing on the impact on patient care and postoperative outcome of the implementation of guidelines and checklists for monitoring blood flow during high-risk surgery.

“Medical researchers are very good at finding the mechanisms underlying various conditions and developing research programmes aimed at developing better treatments. But our research shows that a crucial aspect of this is lacking: the delivery to the patient. Researchers and international professional societies should also be focusing on ensuring that when a treatment is appropriate for a condition or a situation, that this treatment is actually applied to the patient.”

Surgical Information Systems Recognizes Clients for Perioperative Leadership at 2011 SIS Congress

ATLANTA, May 9, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — Surgical Information Systems (“SIS”), a leader in perioperative information systems, recently honored clients exemplifying leadership and innovation in the surgery and anesthesia fields at the company’s annual user conference, SIS Congress. The 2011 SIS Perioperative Leadership Awards were presented to clients who have significantly advanced operational, financial and clinical initiatives. Awards were given to the following institutions:

Medcenter One – Bismarck, ND
Patient Impact Award
This award recognizes the perioperative staff at Medcenter One for their success in increasing their Surgical Care Improvement Project (SCIP) measurements using their SIS electronic documentation. Medcenter One has achieved 100% compliance with SCIP-Card -2 and SCIP Infection 6 measures and they continue to work at improving in additional measures. Using the SIS Wizard functionality enables perioperative nurses to efficiently complete the necessary documentation for these measures.

Luther Midelfort – Eau Claire, WI
Financial Achievement Award
Luther Midelfort’s perioperative staff participated in a multidisciplinary OR Billing Team that used a Lean methodology to effectively update systems in materials management and accounting with the perioperative solution. The new systems and processes were aligned with the SIS electronic record to implement improvements, including a new item master, CPT codes for scheduling cases, the development of standardized testing procedures, and support for anesthesia documentation. The SIS Rules Based Charging (RBC) module helps support the updated charge methods.

Kingman Regional Medical Center – Kingman, AZ
Winning Team Award
This award recognizes Kingman Regional Medical Center and their perioperative and IT team in the implementation of the SIS Solution. This team worked extremely well together and was able to complete the implementation process in an effective and timely manner. This included the implementation of SIS Com, a patient tracking and throughput management system, as well as SIS Analytics.

Seton Medical Center – Daly City, CA
Advancing Anesthesia Award
This award recognizes Seton Medical Center, a Daughters of Charity facility, for their use of best practices in implementing the SIS Anesthesia solution. They are seeing tremendous benefits from the use of the SIS Anesthesia Information Management System (AIMS).

Dr. Catherine Hamilton, an Anesthesiologist from Seton Medical Center and presenter during SIS Congress, accepted the Advancing Anesthesia award. “I am honored to receive the Advancing Anesthesia award. Certainly the implementation of an AIMS from SIS has brought significant changes to our organization and practice,” said Dr. Hamilton. “We are definitely advancing our patient safety goals, increasing compliance on many fronts, and becoming more efficient in our day to day operation.”

BJC Healthcare – St. Louis, MO
Product Leadership Award
BJC Healthcare has worked with SIS to advance current modules and test new modules including SIS Trax and SISPoint of Supply Management system. SIS recognizes BJC Healthcare with the Product Leadership Award for their contribution to advancing features and functionality, commitment to innovation and pursuit of quality.

University of California Irvine Medical Center – Irvine, CA

Perioperative Leader of the Year
The Perioperative Leader of the Year was awarded to the University of California – Irvine Medical Center for their contribution to the advancement of perioperative IT in support of driving the industry to achieve new levels of perioperative success. UCI has realized outstanding results supported by their implementation of the SIS Solution including:

-Reduced days in accounts receivable by 50 percent
-Increased number of on-time surgery starts to 86 percent
-Reduced average in patient OR turnover time by 30 percent
-Consistent achievement of compliance with regulatory requirements

“SIS works with industry leaders who use the SIS Solution in increasingly innovative ways and continue to impress us year after year with the work they do and the difference they make at their facilities,” said SIS CEO Ed Daihl. “SIS clients understand the importance of partnering with a perioperative IT specialist to help them solve the challenges they face in the OR and we are honored to recognize them for the caliber of their work.”

SIS Congress is the company’s annual client user conference. Attendees have the opportunity to participate in client and industry-led sessions, workshops, and networking events while interacting with other users of the SIS Solution as well as SIS associates.

About SIS

Surgical Information Systems (“SIS”) provides software solutions that are uniquely designed to add value at every point of the perioperative process. Developed specifically for the complex surgical environment, all SIS solutions – including anesthesia – are architected on a single database and integrate easily with other hospital systems. SIS offers the only surgical scheduling system endorsed by the American Hospital Association (AHA), and a rules-based charging system that has been granted Peer Reviewed status by the Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA).

Surgical Information Systems’ 5.0.3 release is an ONC-ATCB Modular EHR. This EHR Module is 2011/2012 compliant and has been certified by an ONC-ATCB in accordance with the applicable certification criteria adopted by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. This certification does not represent an endorsement by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services or guarantee the receipt of incentive payments.

Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/302411#ixzz1LtSO068Z

UC Irvine Physician Leads Study to Ease Children’s Fear of Surgery

 NIH grant aims to lessen anxiety and pain children feel before and after surgery.

Zeev Kain, UC IrvineA UC Irvine anesthesiologist will use a $3.2 million National Institutes of Health grant to launch a research effort aimed at lessening the anxiety and pain children feel before and after surgery.

Dr. Zeev Kain, professor and chair of anesthesiology & perioperative care, will establish his Provider-Tailored Intervention for Perioperative Stress program at four California children’s hospitals. P-TIPS is designed to promote specific behaviors in adults — doctors and parents alike — that will create a calmer surgical environment for youngsters.

“Some 4 million children undergo surgery in the U.S. each year, and up to 65 percent of them experience significant anxiety and distress before surgery,” said Kain, a national leader in perioperative biopsychosocial research.

“Not only is this traumatic for these young patients, but it also contributes to increased postoperative pain and delayed hospital discharge. A program like P-TIPS is specifically tailored to improve pediatric surgical outcomes.”

Under P-TIPS, surgical staff and anesthesiologists are trained to integrate positive behaviors into their interactions with pediatric patients and their parents — such as using humor, eye contact and simple medical language.

“It’s important that health care providers not overwhelm children with complicated medical jargon or overly reassuring statements,” Kain said. “We’ve found that a friendly and direct conversational approach lowers undesirable stress and anxiety.”

The P-TIPS study will involve UC Irvine Medical Center-CHOC Children’s Hospital, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, UC San Diego-Rady Children’s Hospital San Diego and Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford.

Additionally, Kain is utilizing another NIH grant to create and implement a unique Internet site to help parents ease children’s anxiety (and their own), properly handle postsurgical pain and, ultimately, facilitate healing. Web-based Tailored Intervention Preparation for Surgery will provide detailed information for parents about surgical procedures and postoperative pain management. WebTIPS will also develop a personalized plan for alleviating anxiety and pain, taking into account other medical and psychological factors, such as the parents’ coping and caring skills.

About the University of California, Irvine: Founded in 1965, UC Irvine is a top-ranked university dedicated to research, scholarship and community service. Led by Chancellor Michael Drake since 2005, UC Irvine is among the most dynamic campuses in the University of California system, with nearly 28,000 undergraduate and graduate students, 1,100 faculty and 9,000 staff. Orange County’s largest employer, UC Irvine contributes an annual economic impact of $4.2 billion. For more news, visit www.today.uci.edu.

The 2011 American Association of Clinical Directors (AACD) Annual Meeting and An Evening of Simulation

The UCI Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Care participates in hosting a very successful three-day AACD conference and a stimulating simulation event

Every year, the American Association of Clinical Directors (AACD) Annual Meeting invites leaders in perioperative management to engage in a program that examines “techniques for creating and sustaining highly successful teams in today’s OR environment” (AACD, 2011).

The UCI Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Care was a major player in this year’s meeting, titled 2011 – Vision for the Future, which took place Friday, March 11 through Sunday, March 13 at the Hyatt Regency Huntington Beach. Department members actively contributed to the success of the three-day conference by standing on the Planning Committee, giving various presentations and organizing a key reception.

The 2011 Annual Meeting turned out to be the largest meeting ever sponsored by the AACD. “We just hosted a very successful national meeting of the organization… where the attendance doubled from the prior year,” said Scott Engwall MD, MBA, Vice Chair Clinical Affairs of the department and newly elected member of the AACD National Board of Directors.

In addition to Dr. Engwall, select faculty from the department made an impact through their insightful lectures and interactive workshops.

One of the main highlights of the conference was the Saturday night event, An Evening of Simulation, hosted by the department and Surgical Information Systems (SIS). Conference attendees were invited to the UC Irvine Medical Education Simulation Center at the Irvine campus where they were greeted with a beverage and hors d’oeuvres reception and entertained by interactive simulation stations. The stations ranged from a Sim Baby Infant simulator on which participants performed fiber optic intubations to a viewing of live OR scenarios using the Sim Man simulator in the fully equipped “operating room”. All simulation activities were guided by UC Irvine attending or resident anesthesiologists.

“An Evening of Simulation was very well received and a lot of fun. Thanks go out to Dr. Sharon Lin, Dr. Susan Strom, Dr. Stephanie Cha, Dr. Elizabeth Cudilo, Dr. Elena Paik, Dr. Levina Tran, Dr. Shelby Walters and Ceci Canales for providing a very stimulating event and fun,” says Dr. Engwall. The 3,000-square-foot simulation center, the first of its kind in Orange County, proved to be the perfect setting for AACD Meeting participants to further engage in aspects of perioperative technology and techniques.

 “Next year the meeting will be held in New Orleans and in two years they plan to bring the meeting back to Huntington Beach for us to host again,” said Dr. Engwall.

Program Overview. (2011). Perioperative Leadership Summit 
2011 – Vision for the Future [Brochure]. Park Ridge, IL: AACD.