M A Y 2 0 1 5 O U T P A T I E N TS U R G E R Y. N E T 6 1
Even if staff members aren't wearing their scrubs home, they need to be
conscientious every time they step outside your facility. If there's wind or dust
blowing, or if they sit on a bench, they could be exposed to organisms that can
adhere to scrubs — organisms that, as noted above, can survive on scrubs for
long periods of time. If that happens, they'll bring those potentially infectious
visitors back into the facility when they return. The bottom line: Staff mem-
bers who go outside for any reason should change their clothes when they
come back in.
Meeting the challenge Achieving compliance to proper scrub proto-
cols is a challenge, but we believe that once your staff members see the evi-
dence, they're going to want to do the right things. Everyone needs to under-
stand that you're trying to protect patients, staff, their families and the commu-
nity as a whole.
OSM
Dr. Spruce (lspruce@aorn.org)
is director of evidence-based
perioperative practice for the
Association of periOperative
Registered Nurses.
