Outpatient Surgery Magazine

Special Outpatient Surgery Edition - Infection Control - May 2019

Outpatient Surgery Magazine, providing current information on Surgical Services, Surgical Facility Administration, Outpatient Surgery News and Trends, OR Excellence and more.

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3 0 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E • M A Y 2 0 1 9 P atients who wait nervously for surgery in skimpy gowns always appreciate the effort you make to keep them warm and comfortable. They'd appreciate it even more if they knew inadvertent perioperative hypother- mia has been linked to increased risk of wound infec- tion, blood clotting disorders and cardiac events. With those adverse events in mind, we reviewed a series of case records in our facility's electronic medical record to see how many patients were hypothermic (body temperature below 36°C) in the OR and in PACU. We focused on cases expected to last longer than 2 A Proactive Approach to Preventing Hypothermia Pre-warming was the difference-maker in our quest to maintain normothermia in patients from pre-op to PACU. • HOT TAKE Begin active warming in pre-op and continue it in the OR to prevent the significant initial temperature drop that redistribution hypothermia causes. Amy Yarbrough, BS, BSN, RN, CNOR | Cincinnati, Ohio Pamela Bevelhymer, RN, BSN, CNOR

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