1 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 • M A Y 2 0 2 0
H
igh-volume surgery centers need to take advantage of any
operational enhancements they can to stay ahead of the
game. That's why we've become proactive about IV starts
by assembling everything we need to start a line as a grab-and-go
kit. Whenever our nurses have free time — usually in the afternoon
when the caseload is starting to wind down — they put together the
kits for the next day's cases. The kit includes a pack from our ven-
dor that contains a Tegaderm dressing, tourniquet and alcohol
sponge, to which we add a set of gloves, an IV catheter and a
syringe. The contents of the kit are then rolled up in a towel, which
serves a dual purpose, because our nurses like to use the towel to
position the patient's arm. It's not a laborious task to assemble these
kits. Sometimes two nurses work in tandem on them — one places
all the pieces on the towel, while the other rolls up the towel and
stores it in a cubby in one of our 10 pre-op bays. For each case, the
nurse simply grabs a blanket, the towel with the IV start kit and the
patient's chart, which are all kept in the same area.
Nikki Williams, RN, CNOR
Lakeland (Fla.) Surgical & Diagnostic Center
nwilliams@lsdc.net
TIMESAVERS
Get a Jump on Tomorrow's IV Starts
• ON A ROLL Store supplies needed to start IVs in a towel to save valuable time as you're preparing patients for surgery.
Nikki
Williams,
RN,
CNOR
Ideas Work
That