Protecting the Operating Room Doctor, Nurse, and Patient – Innovation can make a difference
Adam Weintraub, Director, Healthcare Safety Devices, Medical Solutions Global Business Unit, Ansell, Inc.

Wednesday, May 28 2014 7 PM
CLU - Ahmanson Science Building

As healthcare reform continues to be widely discussed, healthcare quality and safety is gaining increased attention. We are already seeing this take shape nationally, where Medicare has implemented its “pay for performance” policy with hospitals, targeting quality and readmission rates. This policy, in particular, focuses largely on surgical processes and outcomes. As such, this has increased the attention on patient and healthcare worker safety in the perioperative setting.

The operating room is a complex environment where the medical team is focused on performing a surgery that will restore the patient to health. In this setting, surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurses, surgical technologists, and patients are faced with numerous challenges and risks on a daily basis. Injuries and infections can have significant consequences unless preventive measures are taken.

While awareness and protection against these risks are improving through education, we still face many serious, preventable events (also known as “never events”) today, such as wrong-site surgeries, retained surgical items, and surgical site infections. Fortunately, innovation is helping to mitigate against these risks. Technology can play an important role in protecting both the patient and the clinical team by helping to reduce the incidence of these events. This talk will describe some of the current risks that exist in perioperative settings today, how innovation is helping to improve healthcare worker and patient safety, and some opportunities to enhance healthcare safety even further in the future.

Adam Weintraub, Ansell, Inc.

Adam Weintraub is the Director of Ansell's Healthcare Safety Devices business, a segment that provides solutions to help protect patients and healthcare workers from injuries and healthcare associated infections. By partnering with healthcare providers to identify and provide solutions to unsolved safety challenges, Ansell continues to enhance the standard of care in healthcare protection. In his position, Adam oversees global commercialization and operations for this business segment. He joined Ansell in 2012.
Prior to joining Ansell, Adam held several global product management positions at Medtronic Diabetes. Before Medtronic, he worked at Campbell Alliance, a healthcare management consulting firm, and at Johnson & Johnson. Adam earned a bachelor's degree from the University of California, Los Angeles and an MBA from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business.