ical conditions are a
factor for one-third of
respondents. A
patient's BMI is a con-
sideration by 15% of
those who responded,
and nearly 4% weigh
the patient's gender.
Ms. Robinson says
the warming practices
she uses are patient- and procedure-specific.
"People come to us from outside in the 100-degree Texas heat to
the lobby, then to the waiting room, then to our OR, which is around
64 degrees," she says. "All of those transitions have an effect on the
body, and a little old lady with a low fat content will handle that dif-
ferently than a morbidly obese man."
Costs offset by savings
Cindy McClement, BScN, RN, manager of perioperative services at
Trillium Health Partners in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, says her
facility spends several thousand dollars a month on patient warming.
They routinely warm patients, and Ms. McClement says there are eco-
nomic as well as clinical benefits.
Cost savings from patient warming can be hard to quantify, but
are obvious. Clinical complications increase costs to patients and
facilities. Warming has been shown to reduce those expensive
complications.
Ms. Robinson estimates that warming costs her facility somewhere
close to four figures a year, which includes having to replace the pop-
ular gel packs that mysteriously disappear.
A U G U S T 2 0 1 9 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y. N E T • 5 9
