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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the disposable plastic replacement options versus the standard disposable laryngoscope handle-blade. Plus, disposable blades that pop off after use decrease the risk of infection and make cleaning the device extremely simple. The reduction in size and portability has also been a huge attraction for the newer models. Today's video laryngoscopes are small enough to fit in your pocket, have fold-up screens and are completely battery operated (our batteries last for 250 minutes). We store the scopes either in the door of the anesthesia machine or in the drawer of the anesthesia cart. It's a good idea to label them with an OR room number so that a provider who uses one in ICU knows to return it to the OR. Regardless of cost and convenience, video laryngoscopes are an inexpensive investment if they minimize the potentially catastrophic risk for even one lost airway that could easily lead to a multi-million- dollar lawsuit. Instantly hooked A quick story to end. Not long ago, my hospital had only 1 video laryn- goscope for the whole department: 12 ORs and 4 endoscopy suites. It was attached to a big pole that you had to wheel around. But anesthesia is changing from a lower-tech, higher-touch specialty to a higher-tech, lower-touch specialty. We now have a video laryngo- scope in every OR. After a few months of daily use, even those anes- thetists who were hesitant to try them became hooked and didn't want anything but the video scopes. They'd get upset if for some rea- son there wasn't a video scope in their room when they arrived in the morning. They've come off the bench and into our starting lineup to become our first choice for all intubations. OSM 1 1 0 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E • S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 6 Disposable blades decrease the risk of infection and make cleaning the product extremely simple. Pamela Bevelhymer, RN, BSN