3 5
D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 5 | O U T P A T I E N TS U R G E R Y. N E T
to occur in rapid succession. If our only job were to draw up drugs
and inject them aseptically, that in and of itself would be a task-dense,
time-consuming activity. When you add the need to manage the air-
way and adjust the anesthesia machine, you have 3 different domains
your hands are involved in, all at the same time. Even if you wear
gloves, it's impossible not to transfer organisms from one domain to
the others, as a wealth of literature (osmag.net/GVxT8d, for example)
makes clear. And the notion that you might always be able to engage
in some sort of hand hygiene between any 2 tasks is both impractical
and far outside the culture.
There's a good chance providers are also dealing with 4
th
and 5
th
domains — the drug/equipment cart and the keyboard for the EHR.
Take one break during a long case and touch that cart — maybe
there's a need to start a new IV, or grab a bag of fluid — and the
cart is going to be contaminated by biomaterial from those other
domains.
Do your anesthesia providers
practice poor hand hygiene?
s Very often 29%
s Often 22%
s Sometimes 32%
s Rarely 14%
s Never 3%
SOURCE: Outpatient Surgery
Magazine InstaPoll, November
2015, n=232
InstaPoll
