to improve our practices. The Association for the Advancement of
Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) standards and Association of
periOperative Nurses (AORN) guidelines are the drivers for how we
practice infection prevention in surgery and sterile processing. These
guidelines are expensive to purchase, but well worth it. I often see
people using outdated guidelines. They're following them, and think
they're fine, then learn they're not compliant because practices have
changed. It's critical for any ASC to have current copies of those stan-
dards and guidelines, and literally build their practices, procedures
and policies around them.
IFUs: Learn them, love them, live them. You should also have
the instructions for use (IFUs) for all the devices and equipment
you use. They can't be shelf documents, however. You
have to keep an open mind that the IFU's contents, as
well as what's in the AAMI standards and AORN
guidelines, can teach you something you didn't
know. A lot of times we learn things and assume
that's how it should be done forever. You may
think you know the best way to turn a room, handle
a chemical, clean devices and operate equipment, but
it's the little changes that happen in increments that we
need to keep on top of in order to improve our perform-
ances.
The "that's always how we've done it here" mentality
isn't helpful. For example, years ago we didn't have to fol-
low IFUs. We just took a best-guess approach on the best
way to clean a new instrument. Current processes
involve more steps and take longer, but result in
cleaner and safer instruments. I still get calls from
2
J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 9 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y. N E T • 2 7
• NO SHORTCUTS Resist the temptation to
save time by cutting corners. Always clean
instruments and rooms to acceptable levels.
Pamela
Bevelhymer,
RN,
BSN,
CNOR
