Surgical Leadership

Hospital margins are stuck. Not falling off a cliff. Not recovering, either. Stuck. According to Kaufman Hall’s April 2026 National Hospital Flash Report, the median hospital operating margin, including allocations, was 1.9% in February 2026, up slightly from 1.0% in January, but still far below what’s needed to fund workforce, technology, and capital investment. National […]

Managed Service Providers (MSP) and Vendor Management Systems (VMS) have become a common travel staffing solution for hospitals, but many are designed primarily around nursing and other licensed clinical roles. This model often fails to account for the specialized demands of sterile processing. When SPD roles are treated as low-cost, non-revenue-generating positions and routed through […]

When the OR Runs Late, the Root Cause Often Starts Elsewhere: The Role of Operational Efficiency in Surgical Success When healthcare leaders discuss operating room performance, the conversation often centers around case volumes, surgeon utilization, or first-case on-time starts. While these metrics are important, achieving sustainable success requires looking deeper at the operational systems that […]

The Most Overlooked Infection Prevention Strategy in Healthcare Healthcare leaders invest significant time and resources into reducing healthcare-associated infections (HAIs). Conversations often focus on hand hygiene compliance, environmental cleaning, isolation protocols, surveillance programs, and antimicrobial stewardship. All of these initiatives are essential. But there is another critical component of infection prevention that rarely receives the […]

Sterile Processing (SPD) is the hidden backbone of surgical safety. Every instrument that enters the operating room passes through SPD, yet the department is often overlooked until something goes wrong. When workflows break down, health systems face preventable delays, surgeon dissatisfaction, and increased risk of surgical site infections (SSIs). SSIs alone cost $20k–$40k per case, […]