Earlier this year, the 2026 Association of periOperative Registered Nurses (AORN) Global Surgical Conference & Expo was held in New Orleans, Louisiana, on April 11-14. The event is for perioperative nurses and professionals and provides a platform for education, networking, and exploring the latest advancements in surgical nursing.
This year, a team of nurses from Flushing Hospital Medical Center, Maria Cristina Uy, DNP, RN, CNOR, NPD-BC, Kathleen Sosnicki, MSN, RN, CNOR, and Natalee Smith-Rodney, MSN, RN, presented a poster titled, “Implementation Of A Unit Practice Change Through Evidence-Based Practice”. The poster discusses the implementation of a unit of practice change (ASU- Ambulatory Surgery Unit) through evidence-based practice to solve the problem of inefficiencies in operating room (OR) processes, such as delays in first-case on-time starts, which negatively impact patient and provider satisfaction, as well as causing a cascading effect on later surgical cases. The team found a solution for this problem by implementing an evidence-based practice such as Kotter’s “Eight Steps of Change”, which involves a collaborative team effort between the education specialist, Perioperative Director, and RN staff as the unit champion, improves the first-case on-time start as reflected in the increase 42.8% in 2022 to 80% in 2024, and to 90% in 2026. Nurses were empowered in patient care.
Congratulations to Maria Cristina, Kathleen Sosnicki, and Natalee Smith-Rodney for this great achievement.
