Having quick and easy access to continuous temperature readings
would prove invaluable when talking with patients who feel warm
and want us to turn down the heat. With a quick check of the control
panel's digital display, our nurses could tell if stopping active warm-
ing would be appropriate. Nurses wouldn't have to disturb resting
patients to take their temperature, instead determining with a quick
glance at the digital display if the reading is within an acceptable
range. The non-invasive forehead sensor also eliminates the need for
using esophageal or rectal catheters to take the temperature of sedat-
ed patients in the OR.
The new monitoring system can automatically document tempera-
ture readings in some electronic health record platforms. That
would take some of the recordkeeping burden off of our staff and
help us meet requirements of the Surgical Care Improvement
Project, which mandate the recording of a normothermic tempera-
ture reading within 30 minutes before or 15 minutes after anesthe-
sia end time.
Efforts are heating up
Are our pre-warming efforts working? Anecdotally, they are. We
don't yet have hard data to back up what we're observing on a daily
basis — that temperatures are more often in the normothermic
range and patients are more satisfied with their care — but our
hopeful addition of the forehead monitoring system will let us more
easily capture and track patients' temperature readings during every
phase of their care, so we'll know for certain that we're doing all we
can to keep them warm, safe and satisfied.
OSM
4 8 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E • J U L Y 2 0 1 9
Ms. Garrett (connie.garrett@va.gov) is a perioperative clinical nurse leader
and educator at James A. Haley Veterans Hospital in Tampa, Fla.