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cover her kits come with, saying there's less drainage on her pads and
mattresses and fewer repairs to her OR tables. Impervious linens also
wick fluid away from the patient's skin, helping to prevent skin breakdown, she adds. One vendor's table linens feature antimicrobial coating on the back.
Find a vendor that lets you customize your kits. You don't want anything left over that you have to throw away. Plus, as Laura Allen, RN,
BSN, CGRN, clinical director of the Endoscopy Center at St Francis in
Indianapolis, Ind., discovered, if you can purchase an item for less, go
for it. "We had suction tubing in our kits to start, but the added
expense of that one item was so much more than we could get in bulk
ourselves that I couldn't justify the addition, so we had it removed,"
she says.
Not exactly eco-friendly
With many ORs trying to go green, some complain that using turnover
packs isn't an environmentally friendly practice. There are lots of
items to discard after each case, including heavy disposable mopheads. For Sandra L. Myers, MSN, a clinical nurse specialist at Naval
Medical Center Portsmouth (Va.), the debate comes down to laundering reusable sheets versus filling up landfills with the disposable
sheets you'll often find in turnover kits.
"Our OR green team is really vigilant that we recycle single-use items
and blue wrap. Then we have all this disposable stuff from our turnover
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O U T PAT I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E O N L I N E | M A R C H 2013
