Outpatient Surgery Magazine

Special Edition: Infection Control - May 2020 - Subscribe to Outpatient Surgery Magazine

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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more blankets. Now, we place a single warmed blanket on top of the forced-air warming gown, mainly for privacy purposes in the hall- ways. The forced-air warming gowns are single-use, so we don't need to clean or wash them like we did the mountains of cotton blankets 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 You can't fix what you don't measure. Before conducting a study on the effectiveness of our hospital's prewarming practices, we didn't have a documented baseline of how many patients were hypothermic during surgery. That was partly due to a lack of consistent documentation in the OR of patient tempera- tures by our anesthesia providers. They moni- tored patients' temperatures, but weren't keeping a record of it. Because implementing our prewarming protocols was a nurse-driven project, we did- n't have the ability to make it standard prac- tice for the anesthesia department to docu- ment temperatures taken in the OR. We encouraged it, though, and still do. To make patient temperature documentation a standard of care in your facility, we recommend creating a standardized practice for cap- turing readings. This practice should include the type of method used and when temperature readings should be captured. Be sure your staff buys into the practice and don't forget to secure the support of your anesthesia providers. — Marci D. Trump, MSN, RN, CNOR; Adrianna Medina, RN, CNOR; and Denise Rainier, MBA, BSN, RN Talk About Taking Temperatures • HOT TOPIC Make sure staff agree on a method for measuring patients' tempera- tures and apply it consistently.

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