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Is Your Turnover Team Fast Enough? - August 2014 - Subscribe to Outpatient Surgery Magazine

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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David Bernard INFECTION PREVENTION 3 8 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 U G U S T 2 0 1 4 Are There Benefits to Pre-Op Bathing? What we know and how to improve this skin prep practice. W hile the evidence is strong that pre-op patient skin antisep- sis effectively reduces microorganisms on the skin, current research is inconclusive on whether that reduces surgical site infections. "It's vague," says AORN Perioperative Nursing Specialist Amber Wood, MSN, RN, CNOR, CIC, CPN. "But we know the patient needs to be clean." Even if we don't know how well pre-op bathing, showering or wiping works, you should still advise patients to do it. That's the latest recom- mendation from AORN, which suggests you instruct patients "to bathe or shower before surgery with either soap or a skin antiseptic on at least the night before or the day of surgery." (Emphasis added.) More than one-third (36%) of the 190 surgical facility leaders that Outpatient Surgery Magazine polled don't even bother giving patients pre-op bathing instructions (see "What Are Your Pre-Op Bathing Instructions to Patients?"). For those that do, only 13% tell patients to wash or wipe for 2 or more nights. Keep them compliant Getting patients to comply with pre-op bathing instructions is chal- lenging when, as Ms. Wood freely admits, "we don't know what the optimal bathing procedures are." Among the questions that remain unanswered: • Which is better: antiseptics or plain or antimicrobial soaps? • Should patients wash the whole body or just the surgical site? • How long before surgery should you bathe or shower? • How many times should you bathe or shower? Since the potential benefits outweigh the risks, though, AORN rec- ommends that you "develop a mechanism for evaluating and selecting

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