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How LSU is Helping Keep Louisiana at the Center of the Nation’s Seafood Map
1. Strengthening the Seafood Workforce Through outreach programs like Louisiana Fisheries Forward, a partnership between Louisiana Sea Grant and the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, LSU helps fishers and processors modernize their operations. These voluntary programs teach best practices in handling, traceability, and sustainability — directly improving product quality and market reputation. LSU’s extension agents also provide hands-on disaster recovery assistance after hurricanes and market disruptions, helping ensure Louisiana’s seafood workforce remains resilient and ready for the next season. 2. Building Seafood Resilience The total economic value for oysters in 2018 was more than $180 million. Resilience defines LSU’s seafood science. Researchers at the LSU AgCenter and Louisiana Sea Grant are leading selective breeding programs and developing genetic tools to combat disease, temperature changes, and salinity stress. With a powerful combination of hatchery capacity, genetics expertise, and industry collaboration, LSU is helping Louisiana’s seafood industry adapt faster and smarter — protecting both the food supply and the economic backbone of coastal communities. 3. Powering Economic Growth Every part of LSU’s seafood research and outreach ties directly to Louisiana’s economy. AgCenter economists analyze market data and advise state and federal partners on strategies to grow the seafood sector. Meanwhile, Sea Grant specialists help entrepreneurs develop value-added seafood products, from branded lines to ready-to-eat options, that increase profit margins and create new jobs in coastal towns. By helping Louisiana seafood businesses stay competitive, LSU keeps more of the industry’s economic benefits right here at home. 4. Supporting Communities Louisiana’s seafood industry faces constant challenges. LSU’s coastal extension agents and Sea Grant programs provide on-the-ground support to help communities recover and rebuild after disasters. Whether assisting with dock repairs, connecting fishers to relief programs, or helping restart operations, LSU’s commitment ensures that Louisiana’s coastal workforce can weather any storm. 5. Preparing the Next Generation LSU’s work extends from the lab to the dock — and into the classroom. New research and education programs are training future scientists, producers, and entrepreneurs to continue Louisiana’s seafood legacy. For new LSU students interested in the coast, Bayou Adventure, a trip created by the College of the Coast & Environment (CC&E), was designed specifically to educate incoming freshmen about some of the challenges and marvels of the Louisiana coastline. The trip stops at sites that showcase "not just the significance of these areas to the state and nation, but the important work that is being done to sustain and preserve them," said Clint Willson, dean of CC&E. Through workforce development, hands-on learning, and applied research, LSU is shaping the next wave of innovators who will protect Louisiana’s coast and ensure its seafood remains world-renowned. Looking Ahead As the seafood industry faces new challenges and opportunities, LSU’s mission remains clear: to protect Louisiana’s coast, empower its seafood workforce, and ensure the state remains synonymous with the best seafood in America.
UF scientist studies muscle loss in space to benefit astronauts and patients on Earth
Astronauts traveling to Mars will face many challenges, but one of the most serious is muscle loss during long space missions. A new study led by University of Florida researcher Siobhan Malany, Ph.D., sheds light on how human biology changes in microgravity and could help protect astronaut health while also offering hope for patients with muscle-wasting diseases on Earth. Malany, an associate professor in the College of Pharmacy, a member of UF’s Astraeus Space Institute, and director of the in-space Biomanufacturing Innovation Hub, recently published findings showing how muscle cells adapt in space. Her team studied bioengineered three-dimensional muscle tissues derived from biopsy cells from both younger and older individuals and observed how they responded to electrical stimulation in microgravity. These micro-scale tissues called “tissue chips” were given nutrients and electric pulses autonomously in a miniature laboratory the size of a shoe box called a CubeLab.x. A camera system inside the box recorded the rate of muscle contraction. “This research is about more than just space,” Malany said. “By understanding how muscle tissue deteriorates much faster in microgravity, we can uncover new strategies to address muscle loss that occurs naturally with aging and with age-related diseases here on Earth.” Siobhan Malany studies the effects of microgravity on human muscle biology using an automated tissue chip system. View her profile here The study found that younger muscle tissue showed more pronounced changes in mitochondrial pathways — cellular systems that produce energy — than older tissue did when exposed to microgravity. Researchers also discovered that, on Earth, older muscle tissue responds less to electrical stimulation than younger tissue. But in space, the younger tissue showed a noticeable drop in its ability to contract, suggesting that younger muscle may experience a greater change when exposed to the space environment. These insights may help researchers design new treatments to protect muscles in astronauts during long missions, as well as develop therapies for people experiencing age-related muscle loss on Earth. The project was part of UF’s broader efforts to advance space biology. Through the Astraeus Space Institute, UF brings together experts across disciplines, from medicine and pharmacy to engineering and plant science, to address the unique challenges of space exploration. “UF researchers are helping lay the groundwork for humanity’s next giant leap,” Malany said. “It’s exciting to see our work contribute to both the health of astronauts and the lives of patients back home.” UF’s leadership in space biology is strengthened through collaboration with partners including the Kennedy Space Center Consortium and the Center for Science, Technology and Advanced Research in Space), both initiatives bringing together universities in Florida’s high-tech corridor, government agencies and industry leaders. Malany’s work also builds on long-term collaborations with AdventHealth, using donated tissue samples to model age-related muscle changes in space. Her team also works with SpaceTango, a NASA-certified aerospace company, to design the CubeLab that flew to the International Space Station on multiple SpaceX missions. Looking ahead, Malany and her team are developing new ways to study astronaut-derived cells, including both skeletal and heart muscle, generated from blood samples. These “avatars” could help researchers track changes before, during and after space missions, providing an unprecedented window into how microgravity affects the human body. “Now we can study cells from individual astronauts and see how they respond over time,” Malany said. “This helps us understand the risks of long-term spaceflight and also gives us a platform for testing potential treatments for muscle-wasting conditions on Earth.” By using tissue chips, small, bioengineered devices that mimic the structure and function of human organs, scientists in space can gather data more quickly and accurately than with traditional animal studies, potentially accelerating the discovery of therapies for aging-related muscle loss. Looking to know more about this amazing research or connect with Siobhan Malany - simply click on her icon now to arrange an interview today.
New path to combating global malnutrition found in soil
A new University of Delaware study has found that a naturally occurring soil microbe can boost protein-building amino acids in wheat. The finding by UD's Harsh Bais and others could pave the way for nutrient-rich staple crops — helping combat global malnutrition as fluctuations in weather reduce crop quality. In the study, published in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology, Bais and a team of researchers from UD, Stroud Water Research Center and the Rodale Institute investigated how a bacteria naturally found in the soil that is beneficial to human health can enhance the levels of the amino acid and antioxidant ergothioneine in spring wheat. The researchers grew the spring wheat — one of the most widely consumed cereal crops — in a laboratory. After letting the seeds germinate and grow for seven days, they added a strain of bacteria called Streptomyces coelicolor M145 to the spring wheat roots. After combining the bacteria and the plant, they separated the plant’s leaves and roots. Then, they extracted the amino acid ergothioneine from the samples, working to determine how much protein was in the plant’s roots and shoots. They found that 10 days after S. coelicolor had been added to the spring wheat roots, the bacteria was able to inhabit spring wheat’s roots and shoots, producing ergothioneine, bypassing the plant’s innate defense mechanisms, and fortifying the spring wheat. Wheat roots were inoculated with the benign bacteria Streptomyces coelicolor. The image shows the presence of bacteria on the root hairs on day 5. “It’s unusual," Bais said. “Unless there is a mutual advantage for either the plant or the microbe.” The findings suggest that an alternative plant breeding approach could be utilized to associate plants with benign microbes to increase protein content in staple crops. All of our cereal crops are very low in protein. Think rice and breakfast cereals, common foods people eat, derived from these crops. “This approach of harnessing a natural association of microbes with plants may facilitate fortifying our staple crops, enhancing global nutritional security,” Bais said. Bais said he believes using microbes to transport nutrients depends on the microbes’ relationship with plants’ roots. He continues to work to catalyze the colonization of plant roots by beneficial microbes. "Establishing a partnership with the appropriate types of microbes or microbial consortia for plants represents a method of engineering the rhizosphere — the region of the soil near plant roots — to foster a more favorable environment for either microbial associations that stimulate plant growth traits or enhance nutrient availability, which is the path forward,” Bais said. Bais, a professor of plant biology who was named a UD Innovation Ambassador earlier this year, said plants’ “below-ground” traits, such as how nutrient-dense they are, have long been overlooked. “As far as food security, we will have significant challenges by 2050 when the world’s population doubles,” Bais said. “We incentivize our farmers for crop yield; we don’t incentivize them for growing nutrient-dense crops. Growing nutrient-dense plants will enable the population to be fed better and avoid any potential nutrient deficiencies.” The study was funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research. Scientists have become more interested in soil bacteria as a means to solve issues with malnutrition and nutrient deficiencies. Alex Pipinos, the lead author and a UD Class of 2025 graduate with a master’s in microbiology, said environmental conditions are one factor diminishing protein content in plants. “Essentially, crops are becoming less nutrient-dense,” Pipinos said. “The more nutrients in crops, the more healthy humans can be.” Pipinos points to a strong link between soil microbes, plant health and human health. Ergothioneine, she said, has already been shown to lower the risk of cardiovascular disease. It’s also been shown to combat cognitive decline, with a strong link to healthy cognitive aging. “By enhancing ergothioneine in plants, we can improve human health,” Pipinos said. To reach Bais directly and arrange an interview, visit his profile and click on the contact button. Reporters can also contact UD's Media Relations Department.
Soaring gold prices could bring big rewards – and even bigger risks
This week, gold prices surged to record highs, reshaping both the financial and geopolitical landscape. The University of Delaware’s Saleem Ali can explain the potential environmental, social and economic ripple effects of this gold rush and the opportunities and risks it creates. He says a controlled release of global gold reserves could help ease market pressure and mitigate the negative impacts. Ali, a professor of energy and the environment, can discuss the following main points: • The record gold price (which dipped slightly today) has implications for new gold mining projects becoming more financially attractive which could have environmental and social implications in those areas. • Major gold trading hubs like Switzerland and Dubai will need to be more vigilant as gold will become more attractive for the illicit economy for commodities. • We have major global bank reserves of gold even though the gold standard is no longer used to back currency. Some of these reserves could be liquidated to reduce pressure and negative externalities. Such a controlled release of gold reserves could help to manage the price rise. Ali also serves on the Independent Governance Committee for the Dubai Multicommodity Center, which manages all of the gold coming into the United Arab Emirates. To reach Ali directly and arrange an interview, visit his profile and click on the “connect” button. Interested reporters can also send an email to MediaRelations@udel.edu.
By Steven Lazarus Like many coastal regions, Florida’s Space Coast faces significant climate resilience challenges and risks. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Florida has over 8,000 miles of shoreline, more than any other state in the contiguous U.S. In addition, the 2020 census indicates that that there are 21 million Florida residents, 75-80% of which live in coastal counties. This makes our state particularly vulnerable to rising sea levels, which are directly responsible for a host of coastal impacts, such as saltwater intrusion, sunny-day (high-tide) flooding, worsening surge, etc. There is growing evidence that storms are becoming wetter as the atmosphere warms— increasing the threat associated with compound flooding, which involves the combined effects of storm surge, rainfall, tides and river flow. Inland flooding events are also increasing due to overdevelopment, heavy precipitation and aging and/or inadequate infrastructure. The economic ramifications of these problems are quite evident, as area residents are confronted with the rising costs of their homeowners and flood insurance policies. As the principal investigator on a recently funded Department of Energy grant, Space Coast ReSCUE (Resilience Solutions for Climate, Urbanization, and Environment), I am working with Argonne National Laboratory, Florida Tech colleagues, community organizations and local government to improve our climate resilience in East Central Florida. It is remarkable that, despite its importance for risk management, urban planning and evaluating the environmental impacts of runoff, official data regarding local flooding is virtually nonexistent! Working alongside a local nonprofit, we have installed 10 automated weather stations and manual rain gauges in what was previously a “data desert” east of the Florida Tech campus: one at Stone Magnet Middle School and others at local homes. “We think that a ‘best methods’ approach is proactive, informed and cost-effective. The foundation of good decision-making, assessment and planning is built on data (model and observations), which are critical to adequately addressing the impact of climate on our communities.” – steven lazarus, meteorology professor, ocean engineering and marine sciences Data from these stations are available, in real-time, from two national networks: CoCoRaHS and Weather Underground. The citizen science initiative involving the rain gauge measurements is designed to document flooding in a neighborhood with limited resources. In addition to helping residents make informed choices, these data will also provide a means by which we can evaluate our flood models that will be used to create highly detailed flood maps of the neighborhood. We are working with two historic extreme-precipitation events: Hurricane Irma (2017) and Tropical Storm Fay (2008)—both of which produced excessive flooding in the area. What might the local flooding look like, in the future, as storms become wetter? To find out, we plan to simulate these two storms in both present-day and future climate conditions. What will heat stress, a combination of temperature and humidity, feel like in the future? What impact will this have on energy consumption? The station data will also be used develop and test building energy-efficiency tools designed to help the community identify affordable ways to reduce energy consumption, as well as to produce high-precision urban heat island (heat stress) maps that account for the impact of individual buildings. The heat island and building energy modeling will be complemented by a drone equipped with an infrared camera, which will provide an observation baseline. We think that a “best methods” approach is proactive, informed and cost-effective. The foundation of good decision-making, assessment and planning is built on data (model and observations), which are critical to adequately addressing the impact of climate on our communities.
Simulations of Exoplanet Formation May Help Inform Search for Extraterrestrial Life
Florida Tech astrophysicist Howard Chen is offering new insights to help aid NASA’s search for life beyond Earth. His latest theoretical work investigates the TRAPPIST-1 planetary system, one of the most widely studied exoplanetary systems in the galaxy. It has captured scientists’ attention for its potential to host water, and thus possibly life, on its planets. Now, he’s offering an explanation for why telescopes have yet to find definitive signs of either. The paper “Born Dry or Born Wet? A Palette of Water Growth Histories in TRAPPIST-1 Analogs and Compact Planetary Systems” was authored by Chen, an assistant professor of space sciences, and researchers from NASA, Johns Hopkins University and Harvard University, was published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters in September. It explores the likelihood that TRAPPIST-1’s three innermost exoplanets contained no water when they formed, despite existing in a zone where water is viable. TRAPPIST-1 is a red dwarf star located about 40 light-years away from us. (One light year is about 6 trillion miles.) It is thought to be about 7.6 billion years old, or 3 billion years older than our Sun. Astronomers are captivated by the TRAPPIST-1 system because its seven known planets are rocky and Earth-like. They also fall within the star’s habitable zone: the distance range from a star at which temperatures are not too hot or cold to support liquid water. Researchers are searching for any evidence of water on these planets, but have yet to detect anything. Some think a lack of gas in the atmosphere is disrupting the light needed to pick up detailed visuals. Others predict water could have escaped the planets’ atmospheres throughout their evolution. Chen and his team, however, decided to research a different theory: that there was no water to begin with because there was no gas to contain it. He would test it not from an observational perspective, but with mathematical modeling of the planets’ initial formation. “You have astronomers who are using telescopes to see what’s out there. I come from a different perspective,” Chen said. “I’m both trying to explain what we’re seeing while trying to make predictions about what we can’t.” The researchers created models that examined the composition and growth of these planets starting when they were as small as one kilometer wide. They simulated how material aggregated during collisions with other celestial objects until they reached their final planetary formations. There are several key factors in collision events that heavily influence a planet’s final composition. Chen’s models incorporated impact delivery, which is the transfer of materials like water and gases during a celestial collision; impact erosion, which refers to the removal of materials in a planet’s atmosphere due to impact; and mantle-atmosphere exchange, which is the transfer of water and gases between a planet’s atmosphere and mantle to maintain its conditions. The team ran hundreds of collision simulations, which returned thousands of different possibilities for how TRAPPIST-1’s planets might have formed. They varied several components, such as the amount of water available to the system, the profile of the initial planet formation environment, the planets’ density profiles and the initial system conditions. For the inner worlds, specifically the first three planets, most of the simulations came back dry. “Whatever we did, we couldn’t get much water in these inner planets,” Chen said. He believes that the main reason the planets couldn’t acquire water is due to the nature of the collision events. Compact planet collisions are higher velocity, so they are more aggressive and energetic, Chen said. This means that instead of acquiring material for a gaseous atmosphere, planets’ atmospheres were completely cleared out by the power of the collisions. With no gas in the atmosphere to contain water, it’s possible that any previously existing water escaped back into space during these collision events. Understanding a planet’s earliest characteristics, its water, air and carbon content, builds the foundation for how they evolve. That way, when researchers identify a planet that seems viable for life at the surface level, they can use Chen’s model to simulate what these distant worlds might be like on the inside, on the surface and in the air. Combining the theoretical context of a planet’s formation with the state in which it was discovered can help researchers – and NASA – make informed, efficient decisions on which planets are worth investigating and when it’s time to move on to the next. If you're interested in connecting with Howard Chen about the search for life beyond Earth, let us help. Contact Adam Lowenstein, Assistant Vice President for External Affairs at Florida Institute of Technology, at adam@fit.edu to arrange an interview today.
MSU researchers develop wood-based material that improves safety and life of lithium-ion batteries
For consumers worried about the risks associated with using lithium-ion batteries — which are used in everything from phones to laptops to electric vehicles — Michigan State University has discovered that a natural material found in wood can improve battery safety while also improving the battery’s life. Chengcheng Fang, assistant professor in the College of Engineering, and Mojgan Nejad, an associate professor in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, collaborated to engineer lignin, a natural ingredient of wood that provides support and rigidity, into a thin film separator that can be used inside lithium-ion batteries to prevent short circuits that can cause a fire. “We wanted to build a better battery,” said Fang. “But we also wanted it to be safe, efficient and sustainable.” Inside a battery, the positively charged cathode and negatively charged anode electrodes help the flow of electricity. To keep these electrodes apart, a commercial separator is typically made from polyethylene and polypropylene plastic materials, which can shrink at temperatures near 100 degrees Celsius. Without the protection of the separator, the cathode and anode sides of the battery have the potential to touch, causing an accidental short circuit and possible fire or explosion. In contrast, the lignin-based separators developed remained stable and didn’t become smaller in size up to temperatures of 300 degrees Celsius. Fang and her team tested varying thicknesses of lignin and found that films measuring 25 micrometers, which is thinner than one quarter of a human hair, were the most effective at keeping the inside of the battery stable and keeping the anode and cathode from connecting. Using the lignin film inside the battery had another benefit: the increased stability inside the battery also resulted in an improved cycle life, or how many times the battery can be charged and used. “We were surprised to see that the lignin film also improved the battery’s cycle life,” said Fang. “We increased the battery’s cycle life by 60%.” A third advantage of this research is an environmentally friendly one. The team was able to manufacture the lignin separators using a low-cost dry processing method. This meant that the team was able to produce large quantities of the lignin film, on demand, while avoiding the use of harmful solvents commonly used in traditional separator manufacturing, which can be harmful to the environment. In this case, the researchers were able to use lignin and other materials that provided a 100% raw material conversion to create a film without creating any waste or pollution. “Lignin, particularly lignosulfonate, is naturally abundant and it doesn’t need any further treatment to function in batteries,” said Fang. “This work demonstrates a new design pathway to improve both the safety and manufacturability of battery materials.” This research was published in Advanced Materials, and the technology is patent pending through the MSU Innovation Center.
Michael McClure, Ph.D., associate professor from the Department of Biomedical Engineering and affiliate faculty in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and in the Institute for Engineering and Medicine, has been named chair of the Orthopaedic Research Society’s (ORS) newly launched Skeletal Muscle Section. The section began in August 2025, building on research interest groups and symposia to create a dedicated home for skeletal muscle studies within ORS. Its mission is to advance collaboration, innovation, education and translation in this field. Skeletal muscle disorders cause disability, chronic pain and high health care costs. Severe injuries and degenerative diseases, such as muscular dystrophies, remain difficult to treat. The section will strengthen research in muscle development, aging, trauma, disuse and disease. This work will expand the basic understanding of and identify therapeutic targets to restore function. In its first year, the section will measure success through increased skeletal muscle abstracts at the 2027 ORS Annual Meeting, growth in ORS membership and active participation in section programs. “We are thrilled to launch the Skeletal Muscle Section,” McClure said. “This home for translational muscle research will build on ORS progress over the past 10 years, help recruit new members and foster an environment that connects multiple areas of orthopaedic science.” McClure’s commitment to this work is shaped by his family’s experience with neuromuscular diseases, witnessing the impact of war-related injuries on patients’ quality of life from the Richmond Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and the momentum of translational discovery. Learn more about the ORS Skeletal Muscle Section.
#Expert Research: Incentives Speed Up Operating Room Turnover Procedures
The operating room (OR) is the economic hub of most healthcare systems in the United States today, generating up to 70% of hospital revenue. Ensuring these financial powerhouses run efficiently is a major priority for healthcare providers. But there’s a challenge. Turnovers—cleaning, preparing, and setting up the OR between surgeries—are necessary and unavoidable processes. OR turnovers can incur significant costs in staff time and resources, but at the same time, do not generate revenue. For surgeons, the lag between wheels out and wheels in is idle time. For incoming patients, who may have spent hours fasting in preparation for a procedure, it is also a potential source of frustration and anxiety. Reducing OR turnover time is a priority for many US healthcare providers, but it’s far from simple. For one thing, cutting corners in pursuit of efficiency risks patient safety. Then there’s the makeup of OR teams themselves. As a rule, well-established or stable teams work fastest and best, their efficiency fueled by familiarity and well-oiled interpersonal dynamics. But in hospital settings, staff work in shifts and according to different schedules, which creates a certain fluidity in the way turnover teams amalgamate. These team members may not know each other or have any prior experience working together. For hospital administrators this represents a quandary. How do you cut OR turnover time without compromising patient care or hiring in more staff to build more stable teams? To put that another way: how do you motivate OR workers to maintain standards and drive efficiency—irrespective of the team they work with at any given time? One novel approach instituted by Georgia’s Phoebe Putney Health System is the focus of new research by Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Accounting, Karen Sedatole PhD. Under the stewardship of perioperative medical director and anesthesiologist, Jason Williams MD 02MR 20MBA, and with support from Sedatole and co-authors, Ewelina Forker 23PhD of the University of Wisconsin and Harvard Business School’s Susanna Gallini PhD, staff at Phoebe ran a field experiment incentivizing individual OR workers to ramp up their own performance in turnover processes. What they have found is a simple and cost-effective intervention that reduces the lag between procedures by an average of 6.4 percent. Homing in on the Individual Williams and his team at Phoebe kicked off efforts to reduce OR turnover times by first establishing a benchmark to calculate how long it should take to prepare for different types of procedure or surgery. This can vary significantly, says Williams: while a gallbladder removal should take less than 30 minutes, open-heart surgery might take an hour or longer to prepare. “There’s a lot of variation in predicting how long it should take to get things set up for different procedures. We got there by analyzing three years of data to create a baseline, and from there, having really homed in on that data, we were able to create a set of predictions and then compare those with what we were seeing in our operating rooms—and track discrepancies, over-, and underachievement.” Williams, a Goizueta MBA graduate who also completed his anesthesiology residency at Emory University’s School of Medicine, then enlisted the support of Sedatole and her colleagues to put together a data analysis system that would capture the impact of two distinct mechanisms, both designed to incentivize individual staff members to work faster during turnovers. The first was a set of electronic dashboards programmed to record and display the average OR turnover performance for teams on a weekly basis, and segment these into averages unique to individuals working in each of the core roles within any given OR turnover team. The dashboard displayed weekly scores and ranked them from best to worst on large TV monitors with interactive capabilities—users could filter the data for types of surgery and other dimensions. Broadcasting metrics this way afforded Williams and his team a means of identifying and then publicly recognizing top-performing staff, but that’s not all. The dashboards also provided a mechanism with which to filter out team dynamics, and home in on individual efforts. “If you are put in a room with one team, and they are slower than others, then you are going to be penalized. Your efforts will not shine. Now, say you are put in with a bigger or faster team, your day’s numbers are going to be much higher. So, we had to find a way to accommodate and allow for the team effect, to observe individual effort. The dashboards meant we could do this. Over the period of a week or a month, the effect of other people in the team is washed out. You begin to see the key individuals pop up again and again over time, and you can see those who are far above their peers versus those who, for whatever reason, are not so efficient.” Sharing “relative performance” information has been shown to be highly motivating in many settings. The hope was that it would here, too. Three core roles: Who’s who in the Operating Room turnover team? OR turnover teams consist of three roles: circulating nurse, scrub tech, and anesthetist. While other surgery staff might be present during a turnover, depending on the needs of consecutive procedures, these are the three core roles in the team, and they are not interchangeable in any way: each individual assumes the same responsibilities in every team they join. Typically, turnover tasks will include removing instruments and equipment from the previous surgery and setting up for the next: restocking supplies and restoring the sterile environment. Turnover tasks and activities will vary according to the type of procedure coming next, but these tasks are always performed by the same three roles: nurse, scrub tech, and anesthetist, working within their own area of expertise and specialty. OR turnover teams are assembled based on staff schedules and availability, making them highly fluid. Different nurses will work with different scrub techs and different anesthetists depending on who is free and available at any given time. With dashboards on display across the hospital’s surgery department, Williams decided to trial a second motivational mechanism; this time something more tangible. “We decided to offer a simple $40 Dollar Store gift card to each week’s top performing anesthetist, nurse, or scrub technician to see if it would incentivize people even more. And to keep things interesting, and sustain motivation, we made sure that anyone who’d won the contest two weeks in a row would be ineligible to win the gift card the following week,” says Williams. “It was a bit of a shot in the dark, and we didn’t know if it would work.” Altogether, the dashboards remained in situ over a period of about 33 months while the gift card promotion ran for 73 weeks. It was important to stress the foundational importance of safety and then allow individuals to come up with their own ways to tighten procedures. This was a bottom-up, grassroots experience where the people doing the work came up with their own ways to make their times better, without cutting corners, without cutting quality, and without cutting any safety measures. Jason Williams MD 02MR 20MBA Incentives: Make it Something Special and Unique Crunching all of this data, Sedatole and her colleagues could isolate the effect of each mechanism on performance and turnover times at Phoebe. While the dashboards had “negligible” effect on productivity, the addition of the store gift cards had immediate, significant, and sustained impact on individuals’ efforts. Differences in the effectiveness of the two incentives—the relative performance dashboard and the gift cards—are attributable to team fluidity, says Sedatole. “It’s all down to familiarity. Dashboards are effective if you care about your reputation and your standing with peers. And in fluid team settings, where people don’t really know each other, reputation seems to matter less because these individuals may never work together again. They simply care less about rankings because they are effectively strangers.” Tangible rewards, on the other hand, have what Sedatole calls a “hedonic” value: they can feel more special and unique to the recipient, even if they carry relatively little monetary value. Something like a $40 gift card to Target can be more motivating to individuals even than the same amount in cash. There’s something hedonic about a prize that differentiates it from cash—after all, you will just end up spending that $40 on the electricity bill. Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Accounting, Karen Sedatole “A tangible reward is something special because of its hedonic nature and the way that human beings do mental accounting,” says Sedatole. “It occupies a different place in the brain, so we treat it differently.” In fact, analyzing the results, Sedatole and her colleagues find that the introduction of gift cards at Phoebe equates to an average incremental improvement of 6.4% in OR turnover performance; a finding that does not vary over the 73-week timeframe, she adds. To get the same result by employing more staff to build more stable teams, Sedatole calculates that the hospital would have to increase peer familiarity to the 98th percentile: a very significant financial outlay and a lot of excess capacity if those additional team members are not working 100% of the time. These are key findings for healthcare systems and for administrators and decision-makers in any setting or sector where fluid teams are the norm, says Sedatole: from consultancy to software development to airline ground crews. Wherever diverse professionals come together briefly or sporadically to perform tasks and then disperse, individual motivation can be optimized by simple mechanisms—cost-effective tangible rewards—that give team members a fresh opportunity to earn the incentive in different settings on different occasions—a recurring chance to succeed that keeps the incentive systems engaging and effective over time. For healthcare in particular, this is a win-win-win, says Williams. “In the United States we are faced with lower reimbursements and higher costs, so we have to look for areas where we can gain efficiencies and minimize costs. In the healthcare value model, time and costs are denominators, and quality and service are numerators. Any way we can save on costs and improve efficiencies allows us to take care of more patients, and to be able to do that effectively. “We made some incredible improvements here. We went from just average to best in class, right to the frontier of operative efficiency. And there is so much more opportunity out there to pull more levers and reach new levels, which is truly encouraging.” Looking to know more or connect with Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Accounting, Karen Sedatole? Simply click on her icon now to arrange an interview or time to talk today.
LSU Expert Carol Friedland on Katrina’s Legacy: What’s Changed, What Still Needs to Be Done
After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated Louisiana and brought billions of dollars of damage to the state, lawmakers worked with researchers, engineers and others to create and implement new codes and laws in an attempt to prevent such serious damage happening again. On Aug. 29, LSU and the LSU AgCenter hosted an event at the Energy, Coast and Environment Building in honor of the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, which made landfall in Louisiana on the same date in 2005. The daylong conference featured leading voices from LSU and government officials, who spoke about the impacts that hurricanes Katrina and Rita had on Louisiana and how policies and research have changed since those storms. As a part of the program, Carol Friedland, the director of the AgCenter LaHouse Research and Education Center, spoke alongside Brad Hassert, executive director of the Louisiana State Licensing Board for Contractors, for a seminar called “Innovating Resilience: Solutions Inspired by Katrina.” The two discussed recent developments in building materials and building codes that showed the changes, or lack thereof, since the two devastating hurricanes. At the time of the storms, building codes were not uniform in the state, and some parishes had almost no building codes at all. After Katrina and Rita, however, officials pushed for a unified code that better protected Louisiana residents from dangerous storms and weather events. “After Hurricane Katrina, we actually enacted very strong legislation to adopt the model code,” Friedland said. “Also, at the same time, the FEMA mitigation assessment team went out and documented a lot of the failures from Katrina. This program really helps us learn around the country what are the practices that are working and what are the practices that are not working and then getting those integrated into the code process.” Friedland went on to talk about some developments for houses that she has been working on, like “fortified roofs,” which are new roofs that will protect residents more efficiently than the codes required in Louisiana. Friedland also talked about the process of implementing new codes. Researchers must find agreement with governmental entities and other parties, like insurance adjusters and contractors, to succeed, she said. Hassert spoke about the importance for homeowners to find a licensed contractor after a weather event causes damage to their house. This is mostly to ensure that the house will be repaired to code and so the homeowners will not be scammed or stolen from. Hassert, who was recently appointed executive director of the Louisiana State Uniform Construction Code Council, urged researchers and other stakeholders to come together and participate in council meetings so they can make the most informed and beneficial decisions that they can. Both Hassert and Friedland believe there is work to do to improve the codes and building standards in Louisiana houses, but with communication and more involved research, enhancements can be made. “One of the ways I like to frame this is to think about are we happy with the level of losses that we have?” Friedland said. “Do we think that we’re doing well? Who is happy with the level of loss that we see? I think we can still do better.” Original article posted by the LSU AgCenter here.
