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wanted to continue using the recalled Neptunes (see "Not Your
Typical Recall" on page 46).
Gadsen Surgery Center Administrator Harriet Willoughby, BSN,
whose 6 Neptunes were in constant use inside her 4 ORs and 2 GI
rooms, felt she owed it to her staff — and her curiosity about other
fluid management options — to trial another system. She arranged for
a closed, direct-to-drain system to be placed in 1 of the ORs for 30
days of surgeries that included a full slate of high-fluid orthopedic
cases. The system performed admirably, says Ms. Willoughby. "It was
a very good system, it worked fine for the staff," she says.
But Gadsen decided to stick with the Neptune, as well as the regulatory paperwork required for its continued use. Why? In a word: mobility. The trialed system needs to plug into wall suction to operate, and
this limits where it can go in the OR. "My staff has gotten so used to
the Neptune's mobility if they needed to pull it around to the other side
of the table or across the room," says Ms. Willougby, a 10-year Neptune
customer. "It was easier to manipulate." While surgical staffers tried
connecting extension tubes to the trialed system to extend its reach, in
the end, Ms. Willoughby says, there's just no substitute for untethered
mobility.
Fluid situations
Besides its mobility, the Neptune owes its huge following to the fact
that it eliminates the manual handling of infectious surgical waste. It
uses closed collection carts with built-in vacuums to suction and collect liquids during surgical procedures and a proprietary docking station to automatically empty the liquid waste at the end of the procedure.
Most surgical facilities that have orthopedic cases on the schedule
use portable suction units that roll to docking stations as their main
