Outpatient Surgery Magazine - Subscribers

Her Loss, Their Gain - Outpatient Surgery Magazine - October 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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8 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 • O C T O B E R 2 0 1 9 Y ou can scrub every inch of an OR until your elbows ache, but the minute someone steps into that clean space the air becomes contaminated simply because of their presence. They're exhaling bacteria. Their hair and skin and clothes are shedding it. All of these contami- nants released from surgical team members and patients float through the air, riding air currents in the room until they settle onto instru- ments and into incisions. You might not be able to see airborne pathogens, but they're there, and they pose a potential danger to every patient you treat. How Clean Is Your OR Air? If you think the manual cleaning of OR surfaces is enough to prevent SSIs, you're not addressing a more invisible danger. Maureen Spencer, MEd, RN, CIC, FAPIC | Boston, Mass. • STIRRING THINGS UP The more people, movement and activity there is in an OR, the more likely contaminants are to become airborne.

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