As you know, you
need to administer
most prophylactic IV
antibiotics within 60
minutes of the start of
surgery. When the sur-
gery starts outside
that window,
Medicare requires that
you report it. Yet for
many facilities, this
time frame is chal-
lenging due to long-
running cases, or
prepping or positioning delays.
"Our director of nursing started tossing around ideas with the sur-
veyor about how we might fix the timing issues, and that open conver-
sation led directly to a fix," says Alfonso del Granado, the compliance
officer at Ashton Center for Day Surgery.
The fix? Waiting until the patient is wheeled into the OR to start the
IV. "We just hang the IV bag over the bed, attach it to the line so the
patient is already getting the drip even though the IV isn't started and
then, as soon as you wheel the patient in, that's when you start it,"
says Mr. del Granado. Even when a case is late to start, the ASC still
falls well within the 60-minute window. And you can't argue with the
results they've seen. "We've had 100% compliance since we started
this," says Mr. del Granado.
4. Generating good ideas
Have you checked your generator lately? The Saddle River Valley
6 2 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E • A P R I L 2 0 1 9
• PERFECT TIMING Starting the IV antibiotic right as the patient is wheeled into
the OR — as opposed to in pre-op — is a proven way to stay within the 60-minute
window before surgery.
Alfonso
del
Granado