but waiting until anesthesia has been administered may be too late
(see "Busting 4 Myths About Normothermia" on page 48). Studies
suggest pre-warming the patient 15 to 60 minutes before surgery, and
continuing through to PACU, can effectively prevent redistribution
hypothermia.
"To me, warming is not just for a surgery that's greater than an
hour," adds Ms. Kirchner. "Whether a surgery lasts 5 minutes or 5
hours, we need to make sure every patient has every opportunity to
not get an infection."
Besides, warming a patient for the duration of the perioperative
journey makes more sense from a workflow perspective, says Dr.
Steelman. A forced-air warming blanket or conductive blanket can be
more easily implemented in pre-op, as long as close consideration is
given to the process of care, including the anticipated surgical posi-
tion.
As 2018 approaches, your facility should have all the tools and tech-
niques in place to monitor a patient's core temperature and to docu-
ment how and when you use active-warming measures.
"The focus should always be on high-quality patient care and how we
can improve on that, not on meeting a certain threshold," says Dr.
Steelman.
OSM
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