Kick off your learning early at one of our two pre-conference workshops! We'll be covering updates to The Joint Commission standards as well as providing new and emerging leaders with the skills and information they need to succeed. Stay tuned for more information!

As the name suggests, the Reverse Expo flips the traditional expo format – the vendors come to you for one-on-one meetings! We understand your time at the conference is valuable, and you need to make the most of your time on the Periop Networking & Innovation Hall finding the partners and solution providers that fulfill your needs. 

To express interest in participating, confirm during registration or complete this form.

Perks of participation: Receive a complimentary hotel room night for Sunday evening and access to a VIP reception immediately following! Confirm your interest during registration and you will be contacted shortly with details.*

*Participation in the Reverse Expo is required. If you are approved and agree to participate, but do not attend the Reverse Expo event, your room night coverage will be rescinded.

Some perioperative leaders are unaware of the numerous technological tools available to help them work – and lead – more efficiently and effectively. Some don’t have the time to investigate their options. And some are generally “tech-hesitant,” including a reluctance to embrace artificial intelligence tools, for a variety of reasons.

In this panel discussion, healthcare executives will examine how perioperative leaders can overcome fear and inertia surrounding tech adoption, real-world use cases of tech in perioperative settings that can boost productivity and leadership, how using tech tools safely, securely and compliantly can set an example and tone for those you lead, and how to justify investments in perioperative tech tools for the C-suite.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has approved many hundreds of surgical procedure types to be performed in outpatient settings over the last decade, including hundreds more this year. Now the federal agency plans to eliminate its Inpatient-Only (IPO) list of procedures entirely by Jan. 1, 2028. While that move portends even greater freedom for patients and surgeons in terms of where their operations can be performed, it presents a major problem for many hospitals that could lose even more significant revenue and patient volume to ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) than they already have.

In this session, an expert panel will discuss the business impacts of this imminent regulatory and financial development on hospitals and health systems, as well as proactive strategies and opportunities for a successful and profitable transition, including building or acquiring ASCs or entering into ASC joint ventures; patient selection and safety considerations; how inpatient hospitals can avoid significant loss of revenue and OR usage from both payor denials and the preferences of surgeons and patients; and much more. Following the panel, a Q&A session will allow attending perioperative business leaders to acquire further information and insight about this market-altering development.

Developing a pipeline of new perioperative leaders who are prepared to step into key roles after their predecessors move on or retire is crucial to maintaining the stability of your surgical operations. However, many of today’s talented young staff view leadership roles differently than their more experienced counterparts do. Particularly, they may display “leadership hesitancy” – a fearful or self-doubting reluctance to take on the time demands and heavy responsibilities of a management position.

In this panel, veteran perioperative leaders will discuss what it really takes to attract, engage and develop today’s young talent into new, high-achieving perioperative leaders. They’ll explore how to redefine leadership for young staff who might wonder why they’d ever sign up to be a perioperative leader in the first place. They’ll discuss how to mentally prepare prospective young leaders for the trials and tribulations of management positions, how to address the fear, uncertainty and doubt that can feed their worries about “imposter syndrome,” and describe how to most effectively get young talent to jump at the opportunity to “lean into leadership.”

Learning objectives:

• Identify and address "leadership hesitancy" among emerging perioperative staff
• Redefine perioperative leadership to align with the values of the next generation
• Implement strategies to attract, engage, and develop high-potential perioperative talent
• Prepare emerging leaders for the realities and responsibilities of leadership roles

Surgical robot purchases are often the subject of splashy hospital press releases, and their presence can attract surgeons and patients alike to a facility. After the initial hype fades, however, some surgeons might begin to avoid the robot and revert to their traditional techniques, while other surgeons might use the robot for procedures that would be much cheaper to perform otherwise.

Even if this isn’t the case at your facility, the question remains: Is your hospital or ASC deriving maximum value, and the expected return on investment, on that seven-figure robot purchase?

 In this panel discussion, experts will zero in on how to optimize the use of your surgical robot from a business standpoint, including the types of cases that make the most financial sense to perform robotically, avoiding “robotic overkill” procedures, winning over skeptical surgeons, accounting for the true costs involved in purchasing and maintaining a robotic platform, maximizing efficiencies in use, setup and turnover, sterile processing requirements, training surgeons and staff, understanding the nature of your relationship with your robot vendor, and more.

Join us for a featured luncheon session presented by one of our valued industry partners. These sessions offer a unique opportunity to explore innovative solutions, emerging technologies, and real-world strategies designed to address today’s most pressing perioperative challenges.

Each presentation delivers practical insights you can take back to your organization—whether you’re focused on improving efficiency, strengthening financial performance, enhancing patient safety, or supporting your team. Hear directly from solution providers and subject matter experts who are working alongside perioperative leaders to drive measurable results.

Open to Premier, All-Access, Conference, Speakers, Committee, Volunteer, Press, and Exhibitor Conference Passholders.

Join us for a featured luncheon session presented by one of our valued industry partners. These sessions offer a unique opportunity to explore innovative solutions, emerging technologies, and real-world strategies designed to address today’s most pressing perioperative challenges.

Each presentation delivers practical insights you can take back to your organization—whether you’re focused on improving efficiency, strengthening financial performance, enhancing patient safety, or supporting your team. Hear directly from solution providers and subject matter experts who are working alongside perioperative leaders to drive measurable results.

Open to Premier, All-Access, Conference, Speakers, Committee, Volunteer, Press, and Exhibitor Conference Passholders.

Join us for a featured luncheon session presented by one of our valued industry partners. These sessions offer a unique opportunity to explore innovative solutions, emerging technologies, and real-world strategies designed to address today’s most pressing perioperative challenges.

Each presentation delivers practical insights you can take back to your organization—whether you’re focused on improving efficiency, strengthening financial performance, enhancing patient safety, or supporting your team. Hear directly from solution providers and subject matter experts who are working alongside perioperative leaders to drive measurable results.

The stress, pace, and responsibility of perioperative leadership can weigh heavily on both the mind and body. In this interactive, informative, and fun session, healthcare leader Hazel Boyd — seasoned advisor, serial marathon runner, and professionally trained personal development and mindset mentor — will explore the personal impact of leadership in today’s healthcare environment.

Ms. Boyd will help participants gauge the level of burnout in the room, share practical strategies for leading high‑performing teams while managing fatigue, and outline steps leaders can take to strengthen their mindset, energy, and resilience.

If you’re feeling exhausted, overwhelmed, or simply running low, this session will lift you up and equip you with tools you can carry through the days, weeks, months, and years ahead in your career.

Facilities trying to keep case costs down face a growing challenge around the supplies needed to perform surgery. PPE, medications, syringes, tubes, and other supplies are prone to shortages, price hikes and tariffs, and we can expect more difficulties moving forward due to the high level of volatility in the global economy and the supply chains that power it. In this peer-to-peer roundtable, discuss supply management and supply chain concerns and cost-saving strategies with your peers, including how and why to standardize supply SKUs across your facility and system, how to achieve staff and surgeon buy-in and awareness around the issue, the amount of supplies you should have in reserve, smarter utilization of supplies to avoid case cancelations and delays, building accountable relationships with key vendors, tracking and projecting costs, and more.

Surgical services leaders work in one of the most intense and high-stakes environments in health care. Every decision, tone, and reaction can affect patient outcomes, staff morale, and overall team performance. This presentation explores how emotional regulation and emotional intelligence directly influence leadership effectiveness, communication, and culture in the operating room.

Through real-world examples, attendees will learn to identify emotional triggers, understand the science behind emotional response, and apply practical techniques to remain composed during high-pressure situations. The session reinforces the principle that “when you lose your composure, you lose your leadership,” and demonstrates how emotionally aware leadership fosters trust, stability, and improved operational results.

This session offers practical, evidence-based approaches to emotional regulation for leaders in surgical services. It bridges leadership psychology and real-world perioperative challenges to help leaders build stronger, more resilient teams capable of thriving under pressure.

 Learning Objectives:

• Identify common emotional triggers in high-intensity surgical settings.
• Understand the link between emotional intelligence, credibility, and team performance.
• Apply strategies to maintain composure and make clear decisions under stress.
• Strengthen leadership presence and team trust through emotional self-awareness.

Block utilization is the leading indicator for OR success in terms of revenue and productivity. In this session, you'll learn how Baylor University Medical Center (BUMC), faced with limited OR capacity due to ongoing construction and anesthesia/staffing resource constraints, is using analytics to expand OR access and improve block utilization in preparation for a consistent 4-5% yearly increase in surgical volume.

Driven by renewed alignment between OR leadership and physician champions, BUMC increased its minimum block utilization requirement in its OR scheduling guidelines thanks to its newly redesigned Power BI Analytics & Intelligence (A&I) dashboard, which provides greater visibility of opportunities with underutilized blocks to generate individualized recommendations for surgeons and clinic staff. Targeted clinic education and change management for over 100 active surgeon and group blocks at BUMC resulted in block utilization improvement for its two ORs -- one improved from 53% to 68%, while the other improved from 58% to 74%.

Mr. Ladines will additionally discuss future efforts to improve OR access outside of block utilization improvements, including the use of predictive modeling to evaluate efficiencies gained using an Intuitive DV5 robotic system instead of the XI system, improvements in turnover times between flip rooms, and optimization of same-day discharge capacity and hospital throughput. He'll also highlight snapshots of the Power BI dashboard that his health system uses to drive decision-making for several operational metrics beyond block utilization.

Ample interactive discussion will follow Mr. Ladines' case study, so come loaded with your questions about OR analytics!

Learning objectives:

• Explain how block utilization functions as a leading indicator of OR revenue and productivity.
• Demonstrate how actionable OR analytics can be used to identify underutilized blocks, support guideline changes, and drive surgeon‑ and clinic‑level behavior change resulting in measurable improvements in block utilization.
• Evaluate additional data‑driven strategies to expand OR access beyond block optimization, including predictive modeling for robotic platform efficiency, turnover time reductions in flip rooms, and optimization of same‑day discharge capacity and hospital throughput.

Today’s perioperative teams are more diverse than ever, and that diversity can lead to team-damaging conflicts, misunderstandings, resentments and prejudices. As a perioperative leader, how can you overcome those interpersonal issues to build strong, harmonious, respectful, productive teams that truly focus and collaborate to provide consistently superior patient care?

This presentation is directed toward both new and experienced perioperative clinical leaders who are faced with interpersonal conflicts, staff retention concerns and productivity issues in the workplace. Among the issues Ms. Hickman will address are the divergent work ethics and personalities of Baby Boomer, Gen X, Millennials, Gen Z and Gen Alpha staff, which can present challenges centered on stereotypes, technology gaps, communication styles and, essentially, how different staff members view the very nature of their work and each other.

During this highly interactive session, Ms. Hickman will present real-life scenarios and achievable strategies that can help leaders manage diverse staff, improve relationships, inspire motivation, and drive measurable and sustainable results in the day-to-day work environment.

Learning objectives:

• Identify challenges leaders face when leading clinical professionals
• Define four key areas of focus that leaders should consider when designing and building a team
• Provide evidence-based examples of managing cultural diversity, work-life balance and generational differences.

A piece of equipment breaking down – or worse, an inability to find or secure needed equipment for a scheduled surgery – can throw a wrench into day-to-day operations and workflow and impact revenue as well as create negative patient and surgeon experiences. In too many facilities, there’s only a vague notion of the age, location, maintenance schedule and availability of the equipment needed to perform any given surgery safely and on-time.

In this panel discussion, perioperative leaders coming from different perspectives will discuss the value and importance of having immediate visibility into the status of your surgical equipment fleet, including reducing cancelations and delays, maintaining optimal workflow, ensuring preventative maintenance to reduce breakdowns and malfunctions, making more informed scheduling decisions, planning for new equipment purchases with the right internal stakeholders and external partners, and more.

Partnerships with your educator and nursing professional development (NPD) can benefit perioperative leaders, staff, and patients. We'll explore how to develop this partnership and examine the types of projects that can be developed for success, including:

• Implementing residency/fellowship programs to address staffing needs
• Improving onboarding of new staff
• Enhancing staff competencies through novel educational strategies
• Encouraging staff development by providing them resources and coaching to improve their education and certification
• Improving patient outcomes through implementation of evidence-based guidelines
• Developing novel communication strategies to ensure consistent messaging
• Driving culture and perioperative outcomes

When it comes to optimizing surgical services, the role of the sterile processing department (SPD) can often be overlooked or minimized -- as can investment in this critical area of perioperative services. Opportunities for significant savings and efficiencies abound, however, and they can hide in plain sight in your SPD -- if you know where to look.

Our expert panel will explore those opportunities, including more efficient turnovers, smarter SPD staffing, the cost- and time-saving power of instrument tray rationalization, better documentation and tracking of instrument trays (incuding loaners), safer instrument transport methods, the economics of reusable versus single-use instruments, building dedicated central sterile facilities or using third-party sterile processing services, and more.

If senior leadership at your facility views SPD as an expense rather than an asset, this panel will send you home with powerful counterarguments!