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O U T P AT I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E O N L I N E | D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 4
IDEAS
That Work
RESERVED TRANSPORTATION
Number Your Stretchers to Match Your ORs
W
hen your
patient is on
the OR table,
you usually park the
stretcher that brought
him there outside.
Unless, that is, someone
else has taken it away,
cleaned it off (or didn't?)
and put another pre-op
patient on it.
To help reserve
stretchers that are in
use, we number a few
magnetic-backed cards
that we found at an
office supply store and stick them to each OR door frame (number the
cards to correspond to each OR). When a stretcher is brought to the
OR, we take a numbered card off the OR door frame and affix it to the
stretcher. By identifying that stretcher with that OR, you know it'll be
right where you left it when you need it again. When the stretcher
returns to transport the patient to post-op, we remove the magnetic
card from the stretcher and place it back on the door.
Kristi Plank, BSN, RN
Cartersville (Ga.) Medical Center
kristi.plank@hcahealthcare.com
Kristi
Plank,
BSN,
RN
NUMBERING SYSTEM Magnets help to reserve
stretchers in use by the team inside the OR.
