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| From the Editor
Dear Readers -
Are you willing to share your face and a bit about your experience with your fellow readers? Whether you are already working as an RNFA
or are currently a student, we are in need of perioperative nurses to profile
in this newsletter. And you may benefit from the publicity as well!
Please send your photo along with your name, credentials, current job title and a quote (words of wisdom about working in the OR, tips
for new RNFAs, or similar) to news@nifa.com.
If you have questions, just email or call me at 303-733-1120. Thank you!
Julie Lancaster, Editor
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AORN's New Patient Safety Tool Kits
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 AORN has unveiled the newly revised Correct Site Surgery Tool Kit, which was developed to assist health care providers to implement The Joint
Commission Universal Protocol for ensuring that the correct surgery is done on
the correct patient at the correct site. It contains resources to help you
learn about the protocol and how to implement it.
If you are an AORN member, you can download the tool kit
documents at no cost and even earn one free contact hour for successfully
implementing the independent study and learner evaluation components.
This is one of several tool kits that AORN makes available
to its members to promote patient safety. Others address fire safety, safe
medication, implementing a just culture that fosters reporting and analysis of
errors, standardizing patient hand-off practices, and more. These tool kits
offer a wealth of resources that support awareness and education initiatives,
as well as provide OR managers with sample policies and procedures that can be
adapted to specific needs. And they are all free to AORN members. Click for a list of the tool kits available.
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News: Wash Your Hands! |
Hand-washing in hospitals seems like a no-brainer. Everyone
knows frequent hand-washing is critical to prevent the spread of pathogens.
Or do they?
The Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare is
unveiling the report of a pilot project this week that focused on hand-washing at eight
hospital systems nationwide, reported Kevin Sack in his New York Times blog, "Prescriptions," on Sept. 10, 2009.
"To create a baseline, each hospital agreed last spring to carefully measure
its current compliance, using trained unidentified observers," Sack wrote. "To
the surprise of many administrators, the hospitals found that caregivers on
average washed their hands fewer than half the times they entered or exited a patient's room."
That's the hygiene standard used by both the World Health Organization and
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and incorporated into the Joint
Commission's accreditation goals, Sack added.
"The low compliance rates, which ranged from about 30 percent to 70 percent
at individual hospitals, 'are hallmarks of processes that are not in control,'
said Dr. Mark R. Chassin, the Joint Commission's president."
The hospitals were able to improve compliance dramatically over a
several-month period through strategies that ranged from repositioning soap
dispensers and placing stands for people to set down the items they're carrying
to simply reminding hospital personnel directly.
"Certainly there are some individuals who believe they are above the law,"
Sacks quoted Dr. Chassin as saying, "and their peers and others are reluctant
to call their omissions to their attention."
Click for more on the project and a list of the hospitals involved.
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NIFA helps fund
OR Management Education monthly as an
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