Just 2.3% of
readers said
they "never"
warm patients,
and the bulk of
these respon-
dents came
from facilities
that were only doing extremely short procedures like cataracts.
In terms of when they warm patients, 68.8% of respondents warm
patients pre-operatively (a big jump from the 33.2% who responded
this way in 2013); 89.3% warm intraoperatively; and 72.1% warm
patients post-operatively. For the facilities that practice prewarming,
50.6% do it for 30 minutes or longer, while around one-third (34.6%) of
facilities prewarm patients for less than 30 minutes. For some, pre-
warming isn't based on a standardized time frame like 30 minutes or
less, but on a number of factors such as patient choice, or anesthesia
and procedure type.
For example, DeShawn Bhooshan, RN, HCRM, CNOR, the clinical
nurse manager at USF Health Endoscopy and Surgical Center in
Tampa, Fla., says that in pre-op all patients "get a warm blanket upon
arrival and if it's a general anesthetic case or a case other than eyes,
they get a full-body forced-air blanket."
Warming methods
Our survey found that readers predominantly use 2 methods to warm
patients: a forced-air warming system (Bair Hugger) or a cotton blan-
ket pre-warmed with a blanket warmer, cited by 83.2% and 81.4% of
respondents, respectively. Among the other warming methods: 6.61%
use a spinal underbody blanket (or thermal mattress or bed pad on
D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 9 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y. N E T • 7 5
How do you monitor and
record patients' temperatures?
• Temporal and ear sensors 60.9%
• A non-invasive core temperature monitoring system 16.8%
• Esophageal temperature probe 13.5%
• Digital oral option 8.9%
SOURCE: Outpatient Surgery Magazine Survey,
November 2019, 408 respondents
