AORN journal
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Patients and health care providers alike struggle with alleviating postoperative pain. Patients with unrelieved pain are less likely to cough, breathe deeply, or move easily after surgery, which adversely affects their recovery. Innovations in technology, such as continuous infusion of local anesthetics, have revolutionized postoperative pain management. Technological improvements in needles, catheter insertion techniques, and effortless drug delivery systems are facilitating prolonged analgesia with few adverse effects, increasing patient satisfaction, and expediting postoperative recovery.
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Postoperative hypothermia (ie, a core temperature lower than 96.8 degrees F [36 degrees C]), is a problem frequently seen in surgical patients, especially those undergoing total joint replacement. Patients who experience hypothermia may have increased recovery times and postoperative complications. A team of clinical staff members and personnel from the performance improvement (PI) department of a hospital used a PI model to incorporate use of preoperative forced-air warming blankets that resulted in improved postoperative core temperatures.
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One of the aspects of OR service that is most important to surgeons is quick OR turnaround times. Perioperative staff members and one orthopedic surgeon at the Community Hospital, Munster, Ind, have developed an innovative approach to the OR turnaround process that considerably increases efficiency and reduces average turnaround times. By assigning specific tasks to each perioperative team member, scheduling surgical procedures in order based on type of procedure, and drawing on individual team members' traits, the orthopedic surgeon is able to perform more procedures than other orthopedic surgeons in that facility in the same amount of time, which increases revenue for the hospital.