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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educator at Eastern Idaho Regional. She says booms are slimmer and, because they're suspended from the ceiling, don't take up additional space like a tower. The great technological concentrate Overcrowded ORs are almost unavoidable. As more and more increasingly complex cases continue to migrate to outpatient surgical centers, facilities must invest in more and more pieces of equipment — much of it big and bulky. "We have both the standard-size C-arm and the mini C-arm. Unfortunately, we need both to meet the needs of our surgeons," says Maureen Simpson, RN, CNOR, clinical nurse man- ager of the OR and PACU at the Rye (N.Y.) ASC. Today's ORs must host many different specialties. "As our service line grows, we are needing more and more instruments in the room," says Andrea Fann, RN, the administrator of the Orthopaedic South Surgical Center in Morrow, Ga., which now performs spine and total joint procedures. Being prepared for the "and/or situation," as Ms. Razzano calls it, means pulling extra equipment into the room in the event the surgeon has to convert the minimally invasive procedure into an open one. There's also a real danger in having a limited amount of storage space but continuing to acquire more equipment. Not only is it unsightly and unsafe, but it could be unsterile, too. Crowded ORs can compromise your sterile field. "I'm constantly watching for contami- nation by equipment or cords or staff trying to get around equipment," says Carol Saxton, RN, the surgery director at Decatur County Hospital in Leon, Iowa. Another manager adds, "It's not easy for the housekeeping staff to clean under and around all that equipment." Some facilities use a spare OR to store unneeded equipment, rolling the ortho, ENT and GYN carts out of harm's way when they're not needed. Parking towers against the OR wall helps, too. It helps to think of pieces of OR equipment as if they were kitchen 5 6 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 N L I N E | M A R C H 2 0 1 5