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CHOREOGRAPHED CHAOS The moment a case ends, the
OR should be cleared of trash and dirty linens, and wiped down.
Send in the turnover team
But you'll also hear from surgical facilities who favor a more specialized turnover concept, a dedicated team of quicker-picker-uppers who
do nothing but take out the trash, make up the tables and wipe down
the equipment. They'll argue that less can be more with room
turnover. And by less, they mean fewer people with clearly defined
roles.
"Approach room turnover like a NASCAR pit crew where everyone
has a specific job and knows their role," says Tina Piotrowski, RN,
BSN, the clinical director of the Northwest Michigan Surgery Center
in Traverse City, Mich. "Having more people involved in turnovers
isn't necessarily as important as having the right amount of staff all
knowing what their job in the turnover is. Sometimes if you have too
many people, nothing really gets done because everybody assumes
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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 | N O V E M B E R 2013
Pamela Bevelhymer, RN, BSN, Northwest Michigan Surgery Center
T U R N O V E R
