W
hen our chief medical officer
joined our daily safety huddle
one morning, I saw a golden
opportunity to get our smoke-
free OR program off the
ground. I'd been trying to get in front of the CMO
for a while and, even though I'd only been at my
position for a few months at that point, I wasn't shy.
More importantly, I was fiercely passionate about
smoke evacuation, so I walked right up and said,
"I've been trying to meet with you because we need
to talk about getting smoke out of our ORs." He
initially thought I was trying to sell him on a spe-
cific product, but once he saw I was approaching
him purely from a safety perspective, we were off
and running.
Since that memorable interaction, our facility has
made great strides in going smoke-free. On
September 1, 2019, our campus decided to go tobac-
co-free. We wanted to capitalize on the momentum
and excitement the move generated at our facility
and approached leadership with a simple ask: "If
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• S U P P L E M E N T T O O U T P A T I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E • O C T O B E R 2 0 2 0
Ashlea Blevins, BSFC, BSN, RN, CNOR | Valdosta, Ga.
Smoke-Free Is the Way to Be
Lessons learned from our facility's journey to clear the OR air.
ROADMAP TO SUCCESS The author (left) and Sheri Felkel, RN, proudly display the blueprint they developed for South Georgia Medical Center's smoke-free OR initiative.
South
Georgia
Medical
Center
