between pre-op and PACU, the surgeon will need access to knees,
hips, abdomens or other anatomy. Make sure that the warming meth-
ods you're considering offer configurations that are able to work
around — or, in the case of underbody warmers, beneath — surgical
site demands.
What's your surgical schedule look like? Cataract, pain manage-
ment and some cosmetic surgery patients are in and out of the
OR during the course of the surgical day. They spend such a short
time under the knife and receive such light anesthesia that setting up
extensive warming efforts for each one of them might seem overly
time-consuming or costly. They may be best served by cloth blankets,
fresh from a warming cabinet.
In longer cases, on the other hand, every detail plays a part. When a
hip arthroscopy is expected to run through a high volume of irrigation
fluid, a patient (particularly an elderly patient) may benefit if the fluid
has been warmed by a cabinet, basin or in-line device. Since patient
safety depends on knowing the precise temperature of warmed fluid,
the product should include a readout display. Since having the fluid
close at hand during surgery — as opposed to outside of the OR — will
limit exits and entries and make sure the fluid stays warm, the footprint
of the warming method in a crowded OR is key.
How effective, and how cost-effective, is it? The advantages that
active patient warming brings to surgical outcomes have been
well-documented in clinical studies, and the manufacturers of warm-
ing devices will be eager to share them with you. But why not seek
out the evidence yourself? Trial the options you're considering on a
series of patients, recording their core temperatures throughout the
perioperative process as you do, to see which ones deliver effective
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