other equipment that's needed,
but not in the room.
Random staff members are
known to poke their heads in to
ask questions unrelated to the
surgery being performed. Every
time the OR door opens, contami-
nated air from the hallway enters
the room. The lesson here is to
have the right equipment on
hand, and to let other staffers
know that they'd better have a
very good reason for opening the
OR door during a procedure, or
else they should stay out.
Constant cleaning
Room turnovers are also a concern, especially because staff in many
facilities who are under pressure to keep up with a packed surgical
schedule rush through the process. Manual cleaning often isn't as
deliberate or thorough as it should be, and a lot of contaminants
escape from surfaces and float into the air.
The surface disinfecting policies staff follow can therefore only do
so much to rid ORs of harmful bacteria. That's where new technolo-
gies can supplement their efforts. The goal is to have some technology
in place that removes airborne contaminants as surgery is happening.
Here's a scary anecdote that brings home the need for this sort of
background technology. A few years ago, there was a worldwide out-
break of Mycobacterium infections among cardiac surgery patients. It
turned out that the heater-cooler systems used during these proce-
8 4 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E • O C T O B E R 2 0 1 9
• DOOR BUSTER Laminar airflow is disturbed every time a
staff member enters the OR during surgery.
Pamela
Bevelhymer,
RN,
BSN,
CNOR
