Outpatient Surgery Magazine, providing current information on Surgical Services, Surgical Facility Administration, Outpatient Surgery News and Trends, OR Excellence and more.
Issue link: http://outpatientsurgery.uberflip.com/i/124399
B A R R I E R P R O T E C T I O N Cloth surgical hats are a no-no unless they're facility laundered. Home washing machines usually aren't able to reach the correct temperature, and you can't T he stethoscope is a sort of hub for every person you come into contact with. It's picking up microbes NEW HABITS 5 Tips for Improving PPE Compliance courtesy to help ameliorate, rather than ignore, when you see a problem. 1. Back yourself up. Don't hesitate to go to Encourage the whole staff to become advocates, key sources — OSHA, AORN, APIC, the CDC, left and right and is monitor what staff actually do with challenge them to spot, then politely stop, bad AAMI — anytime someone wants to dispute a a prime candidate their hats. Are they changing to a practices. policy. Also rely on those sources when develop- 4. Make the E stand for "easy." Keep for spreading them new one every day? Are they even ing staff education for a monthly newsletter or from patient to washing them between uses? utility gloves in 3 areas in the OR and in all subregular staff education in-services. Have fun at patient. As such, Bouffant caps are the only sterile rooms. Place hand sanitizer dispensers those sessions: Get physicians and staff to use a there are only 2 acceptable headgear, really. If staff want to wear colorful cloth caps in your facility, they can — so long as next to the trash bins where gloves are most likely certain colorless lotion before performing hand acceptable modes HANGMAN The physician's stethoscope is hung around his neck. there's a bouffant cap over top. These disposable hats are also easier to get over the ears, which should be fully covered in the OR. Ears contain squames that shed and can fall out and onto or into the patient. If the thought of getting sprinkled with earwax makes you squirm, then so should wearing hats above the ears. (Similarly, staff who shave their heads still must wear caps, because head skin sheds, too.) Ban dangly earrings from patient care areas. It's surgery, not a fashion show. If earrings are to be worn, they should be to be thrown out. Launder scrubs for staff (you hygiene. After scrubbing, the lotion will be activat- for the stethoscope: really shouldn't be allowing home-laundered ed, and missed spots will be readily visible. It's a in use, or wiped scrubs anymore). Look around, see how you can good reminder about why PPEs matter, even on down with disinfectant and stowed in the help aid the ways people work on a daily basis. body parts you get "clean." pocket of your scrubs. T his far-too-common practice means 5. Conduct ongoing reviews. As soon 2. Reiterate the message. Sometimes, as you think you've got everyone doing right, the gentle approach is best. Other times, after a everything you've been breathing that's the day you catch the anesthesiologist not torturous half-hour citing statistics, the PPE out, for who knows how long, is wearing gloves. So observation should be ongooffender says, "Well, I still don't think that's true." now exposed to the open air and can go ing, if not a formally counted measure in your SSI That's when it's time to be firm: "That may be your anywhere and everywhere. The rule for tracking. Not much is going to opinion, but this is the way we're going to do it." masks is hard and fast: either down and change in barrier protection Support your infection preventionist and actively off, or up and on. Or, as one of our wittier at this point; it's staff behavpromote proper infection control policies. nurses put it, "Think of your mask as your bra. You wouldn't let it just hang there." OSM ior that needs to 3. Be a friend. Alerting staff to barrier protec- change. tion issues doesn't have to be confrontational. If Jane has already scrubbed in and you haven't, — Patricia studs that fit neatly under the bouffant cap, which then goes over the ears, of course. 4 1 SUPPLEMENT TO Ms. Castellano (pcastell@westchestersurg ery.com) is a staff nurse and the infection control coordinator at the Ambulatory Surgery Center of Westchester in Mt. Kisco, N.Y. O U T PAT I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E | M AY 2013 and her hair's sticking out from under her boufCastellano, RN fant, let her know. Then tuck it up there for her so she doesn't have to re-scrub. It's just common M AY 2013 | S U P P L E M E N T TO O U T PAT I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E 4 2