6 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E • J U N E 2 0 1 8
I
f monitoring the
daily humidity
levels in your
ORs causes you to
break out in a cold
sweat, I've got a sim-
ple solution. Don't
continuously monitor
humidity. You can't
keep up with the
minute-to-minute fluc-
tuations. A room can
float above and below
safe humidity levels
several times an hour.
CMS recommenda-
tions state that we
should keep the
humidity between 20%
and 60% within the
perioperative area —
including ORs, recovery area, instrument processing rooms and ster-
ilization areas — and under 60% in the sterile storage areas. They
also state that we must monitor and document relative humidity lev-
els in each room every day, but they don't say how often. So why not
do the bare minimum?
NO SWEAT
Tracking OR Humidity Levels
Ideas Work
P r a c t i c a l p e a r l s f r o m y o u r c o l l e a g u e s
That
HUMIDITY HEADACHES Use a temperature-humidity monitor you can buy in any
office supply store to measure relative humidity once a day.
John
Olmstead,
RN,
MBA,
FACHE
