Outpatient Surgery Magazine, providing current information on Surgical Services, Surgical Facility Administration, Outpatient Surgery News and Trends, OR Excellence and more.
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1 0 2 O U T P AT 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 | A P R I L 2 0 1 4 Conducting a complete assessment may prove difficult, as facilities use so many products. To help with the process, organize a latex treasure hunt. Empower your staff to try to find anything they think could contain latex. Your staff handles products every day, so it's worth tapping into their knowledge and experience. This hunt should be ongoing as you'll likely find products with latex in them as you go through your supply stock. 3. Remove latex products from your invento- ry. As you identify products containing latex, take them out of your stock and put them in a bag that labels them as latex products. You don't want to comingle things by mistake. If you have good relation- ships with your vendors, you may be able to exchange products with latex for those without. It can't hurt to ask and see if vendors will swap out your latex products. 4. Keep latex out. While removing latex products is an important step to becoming a latex-safe facility, those efforts will be for naught if you allow latex products back in. As you go forward, you should begin to develop a relationship with your vendors so any time you order something, they know you always want products to be latex-free. If vendors can't provide a non-latex product to you, they should tell you, and may even be able to recommend alternative com- panies that can fulfill your needs. Some vendors still maintain a list of their latex-free products, which should be yours for the asking. Your vendors should be willing to partner with you on your latex-safe initia- tive. Despite an industry-wide shift toward non-latex products, never believe non-latex is the default when ordering a new product. You always need to ask about and verify a product's components. L A T E X A L L E R G I E S OSE_1404_part2_Layout 1 4/4/14 2:40 PM Page 102