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H Y P O T H E R M I A
1. How often do you warm? More than half (53.0%) of our survey
respondents warm every patient wheeled into their ORs and nearly one-third
(30.0%) warm patients "sometimes." Quite often, the determining factor in
whether our respondents actively warm patients is the duration of the procedure:
45 minutes for some, 60 minutes for others and, for a smaller subset, a case has
to run at least 2 hours before they'll warm. "Any surgeries longer than 59 minutes," says Mechelle Kemp, BSN, manager of perioperative services at Elkhart
(Ind.) General Hospital. "If they are having general anesthetic or the procedure is
expected to last over 30 minutes," says Karen Rustermier, RN, BSN, CNOR, of
the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, Neb.
One of the facility managers who reserves warming for longer procedures
explains her rationale: "Most of our surgeries are under 30 minutes in length. We
do warm the cases we know are going to last longer, such as shoulders, knees
and any laparoscopy." Ms.
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a time frame."
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5 4
vulnerable," she says.
maintain normothermia in
all patients — regardless
of age — who are undergoing surgery lasting 60
