Living proof
Our center hosts a wide
range of major and minor
procedures that last from
15 minutes to 8-plus hours.
Our warming policy was
whatever the anesthetist
prefers. Determining if any
method outperformed the
others would help standard-
ize the process and could
potentially save on case
costs if we could forgo the
use of forced-air blankets
or heat reflective technolo-
gy in favor of warmed cot-
ton blankets.
During the study period,
we assigned patients in pre-
op bays 1, 3 and 5 to receive warming with heat reflective technology
and patients in bays 2, 4 and 6 to receive warmed cotton blankets for
shorter-duration procedures or forced-air warming for procedures
expected to last longer than 1 hour.
We recorded temporal artery temperature readings every 30 minutes
in pre-op, every 30 minutes in the OR after anesthesia induction and
every 30 minutes in PACU until normothermia was maintained for an
hour. We set the ambient temperature in the ORs between 69°F and
72°F, as recommended by AORN, and conducted daily checks in the
ORs and in each pre- and post-op patient bay to ensure temperatures
stayed within the recommended range.
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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 | A U G U S T 2 0 1 5
Jason
Meehan
z COVER ME A warmed cotton blanket might
be all patients need to remain normothermic.
