Lenard Hatfield
During the course of my career, which is now entering its fourth decade, I have had the opportunity to witness many advances in technology used in the operating room. Advances in techniques, instrumentation and equipment have made the operating rooms safer, improved patient outcomes and reduced surgical time. Improvements in electrosurgical safety, laser applications, video imaging systems and new techniques such as surgical robotics are now common in the surgical environment.
The key to these improvements lie in understanding the appropriate application of this technology. As a surgical nurse have you ever been asked to set up, operate, troubleshoot or process a piece of technology you had not seen before? Have you ever had a surgeon tell you that a laser was nothing more than a “new Bovie devise”? If not you are fortunate. In some facilities new technology arrives the morning of surgery with the vendor representative saying, “Doc wants to use this on his cases today. He just saw it at the meeting last week!” In these cases, your orientation to the equipment could be no more than “Plug this in here, push this button and turn this up when he tells you to!” Have you ever been put in this position to please a major scheduler?
In an era of increased monitoring by external organization, “never pay” reimbursements and expanding National Patient Safety Goals, it is increasingly important that we understand the operation, effects and hazards of the new technologies we are using. Through this series of articles it is my hope to provide my peers with information which will help them to know the right questions to ask to best care for their patients and protect themselves from harm. It is also an opportunity for members of the operating room staff to point of contact where questions can be brought and unbiased answers found. Responses will be based on established guidelines and standards published by organizations such as AORN, ANSI and OSHA as well as vendor responses concerning their products and services. Finally, it is hoped that there will be a sharing of information through an open professional dialog in which opportunities encountered in one facility are shared with others and patient safety is promoted from within our profession, not dictated from the outside.
I hope this series will be informational and assist surgical nurses in their role as advocates for patients and their profession.
Next month: Laser Safety – Is This Really Necessary?
