Articles

Why planning beyond the OR can help hospitals anticipate downstream capacity constraints

Accurate surgical duration estimates are essential for reliable OR scheduling. Yet traditional planning often relies on procedure-level averages that don't reflect the complexity of individual cases. Research shows how machine learning can improve duration predictions, helping hospitals build more accurate surgical schedules and reduce disruptions throughout the day.

Over the past two decades, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation has undergone a remarkable transformation. Advances in mobility, system integration, and clinical experience have expanded where and how ECMO can be used — changing its role from a highly specialized stationary intervention into a widely applicable form of life-sustaining support in modern critical care.

As the building block to living organisms, cells make up our bodies and perform a wide variety of different functions, all while being the smallest unit of the body. Depending on the tissue type, cells can be more or less specialized.

Single-use manufacturing is the production of a finished product that is designed to be used once. In the biopharmaceutical industry, single-use manufacturing is an important and growing part of the industry.

One of the major technologies introduced to the biotech industry in recent years has been artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence (AI) is technology that utilizes human patterns and behaviors to mimic their problem solving in order to perform tasks like answering questions or providing relevant information.

Hospitals face rising patient numbers and limited staff. To better manage these pressures, several Danish healthcare facilities implemented INSIGHT.

Venovenous extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (VV-ECMO) has become a vital therapeutic option in managing severe acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) when conventional interventions fail. The American Thoracic Society (ATS) in 2024 and the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine (ESICM) in 2023 released updated guidelines addressing the role of VV-ECMO. This article provides an overview of both guidelines, outlining their common ground and key distinctions without evaluating or favoring one approach over another.

In pharmaceutical production, maintaining equipment uptime is essential for operational efficiency and process safety. Particularly in cleanroom environments, unplanned downtime can disrupt workflows, increase overhead costs, and in some cases contribute to delays in drug availability.

Safety in the operating room (OR) depends on a multitude of factors: from room size and layout to increasingly sophisticated medical technology, and from hygiene and logistics to human factors. At the same time, traditional surgery is undergoing significant change – highly complex operating rooms are gaining increasing relevance. These fundamental transformations in the OR landscape, and consequently in working conditions, require appropriate adjustments to ensure both patient safety and the protection of OR staff.

In the ever-evolving landscape of medical technology, ensuring the safety and performance of surgical equipment is paramount. The IEC 60601-2-41:2021 (Edition 3) standard sets forth the particular requirements for the basic safety and essential performance of surgical luminaires and luminaires for diagnosis.

Modern operating rooms are high-stakes environments where every minute counts. An unexpected issue with critical equipment like the operating table can disrupt schedules and even jeopardize patient safety.