AORN journal
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Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study
Medication safety: just a label away.
In perioperative settings, medications are removed from manufacturers' identifying containers; therefore, scrub personnel should label medications placed on the sterile field. Compliance with medication labeling practices with the use of both blank and preprinted labels was tested in the OR at a Houston, Texas, hospital. Scrub personnel were more likely to label medications and medication-delivery devices when preprinted medication labels were provided. Data obtained from this project influenced the hospital's management team to supply preprinted labels for all procedures to improve safety for surgical patients.
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Preoperative patient fasting is an essential element of the patient preparation process, but patients may be fasting for excessive lengths of time. Investigators at one facility used semi-structured interviews to explore the knowledge and beliefs of patients, nurses, and anesthesia care providers regarding the practice of preoperative patient fasting. Findings indicate that some patients had excessive fasting times, and practitioners had erroneous perceptions about patient knowledge regarding the rationale for fasting and compliance with instructions. Clinicians expressed concern about the effects of excessive fasting but were reluctant to relax the policy.