7. Educate your staff
Sometimes a refresher course for your staff or re-education is neces-
sary to improve awareness. The Boston (Mass.) Children's Hospital
found that re-education and simulation training of positioning for all
their staff helped improve outcomes A team at Rhode Island Hospital
in Provi-dence, R.I. created a hands-on clinic in the OR for nurses. A
major component of the training involved placing the nurses in the
positions their patients would be in so they could feel the points of
pressure for themselves. They also developed laminated posters
demonstrating the common pressure points associated with the four
most common positions. The posters were placed on their education
boards as a reminder to PACU nurses and used in trainings.
Many facilities implement testing once or twice a year to see if staff
are retaining the knowledge learned during training. Nurses at the
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center used the AORN
Perioperative Mastery Program to assess their staff's knowledge of
positioning protocols — and to measure the nurses' confidence in
their answers. They found it to be a quick, easy and reliable way to
assess their staff's knowledge and improve it.
Out of sight, out of mind?
Treat surgery-related pressure ulcers like the important problem they
are. Patients don't develop ulcers until hours or days after surgery, so
your OR team might not be overly concerned about preventing
patients from developing pressure ulcers. It's your job to drive this
point home to your team.
OSM
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