Back to Basics in the Operating Room

Purpose:
The perioperative leadership team identified a trend away from the Association of Operating Room Nurses(AORN) practice standards in relation to the operating room (OR) environment. The team's goal was to educate and empower staff in order to cultivate a desire to improve overall practice.

Significance:
In order to encourage change, staff needs the knowledge to understand the importance of doing so as well as the resources with which to do it. Improved practice in the OR affects the well-being of patients, family, staff, and the community and affects health-care costs.

Strategy and Implementation:
Our campaign consisted of 3 Phases. Phase I included an educational in-service to review AORN standards in relation to environment, personnel traffic, and sterile technique. This was presented to the nursing staff at an in-service. Our surgical colleagues agreed to support our Phase I tenets consisting of 5 most often disregarded items. While organizing Phase I, we realized that there needed to be a Phase 2 focused on surgical attire. This was our biggest challenge because our current surgical attire laundering practices were not congruent with the most recent AORN recommendations. To achieve buy-in from the nursing staff for all of the proposed changes this needed to be addressed. All nurses at our institution wear navy scrubs and we wanted to continue this important distinction as well. We met with our Chief Nursing Executive and proposed a change to health-care-accredited laundered navy scrubs. This change-over is now in progress. Phase 3 is continued education and evaluation.

Evaluation:
The success of our campaign will be based upon the results of a survey administered to staff before and after the implementation of the attire changes. This will focus on the nurses' feelings of empowerment. Surgical site infection rates will be evaluated before and after the change.

Implications for Practice:
We are using evidence-based practice to help empower nurses to do what is best for their patients, families, communities,and themselves. It will strengthen the identity of the professional nurse in the OR thus promoting patient advocacy and nursing excellence.