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Would You Operate On This Patient? - October 2015 - 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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2 2 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 | O C T O B E R 2 0 1 5 I D E A S T H A T W O R K Y ou'll find little digital timers all around my sur- gery center: around the PACU beds, on the back tables and on whatever surfaces we disinfect. They ensure that we let skin preps dry before we drape and that surface disinfectants stay visibly wet for the contact time listed on the label. For both, it's usually a minimum of 3 minutes. • Surface disinfection. When disinfecting a surface such as the OR bed or back tables, check with your disinfectant label to see what the rec- ommended contact times are in your state, as some states require dif- ferent labeling for products. Know what each solution does and how long it needs to remain visibly wet to work. • Skin preps. The same goes for your skin prep solutions. Read the label. You'll see that most preps state that the solution needs to com- pletely dry before draping, usually a minimum of 3 minutes. Draping sooner than that minimizes the effectiveness of the prep and risks OR fires from not having a dry prep. Our solution: We bought inexpensive timers for every area we disin- fect, and one for each OR. We pre-set them for the required kill-time for our disinfectants and for 3 minutes for skin preps. Once the prep is completed, we start the timer and document in our nursing notes D R Y T I M E C O U N T D O W N Let Surface Disinfectants and Skin Preps Dry z PERFECT TIMING Digital timers ensure disinfectants and preps have time to dry. Thomas Durick, MD

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