Journal of perioperative practice
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Multicenter Study
Reducing the carbon footprint of the operating theatre: a multicentre quality improvement report.
Currently, there are very few provisions for recycling in theatres. We measured the weight of clinical waste for several orthopaedic operations. ⋯ With staff education it is possible to reduce the amount of clinical waste generated by the operating theatre by roughly 50%. A greater awareness of disposal options leads to a reduction in waste disposed of by incineration.
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The Admissions Lounge (AL) was introduced with the aims of reducing the number of late starts, improving the patient experience and reducing preoperative length of stay to save bed days. To determine whether a reduction in number of late starts was achieved, 237 start times from pre and post introduction of the AL were collected and analysed. There was no statistically significant difference (p > 0.05) between the percentage of lists delayed or the mean delay between pre and post introduction of the AL (mean delay for post AL was 10.17 minutes compared to 9.85 minutes pre AL). The AL had no impact on theatre start times, neither improving nor reducing the operating theatre efficiency in this respect.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
A randomised controlled trial of the resistive heating blanket versus the convective warming system for preventing hypothermia during major abdominal surgery.
We compared resistive heating (RH) and upper-body convective warming (CW) in 70 patients (RH 33, CW 31, 6 excluded) undergoing major abdominal surgery. The effect of RH was not inferior to that of CW for the time-weighted average core temperature, and the lower limit of 95% CW was greater than -0.5 degrees C. Resistive heating showed no inferiority in maintaining core temperature compared with convective warming.