Perioperative, Operating Room and Surgical Nursing Commons^™

The Future Of Artificial Intelligence In Perioperative Nursing, Nick Nijkamp, Erin Wakefield

Journal of Perioperative Nursing

Artificial Intelligence (AI) stands poised at the forefront of health care innovation, promising transformative advances across multiple domains. In the field of perioperative nursing, where precision, efficiency and patient safety are paramount, the integration of AI holds immense potential to revolutionise clinical practice.

Defined as the imitation of human acumen, AI enables computers to perform tasks ‘that typically require human intelligence, such as decision-making, problem-solving and learning’. This editorial explores the current landscape of AI, future prospects for AI in perioperative nursing and the ethical imperatives that accompany this transformative paradigm shift.

As technology continues to evolve rapidly, perioperative nursing …

Preoperative Warming To Improve Patient Outcomes: Implementation Of A Warming Protocol, Tiara Switzer-Houston

Student Scholarly Projects

Practice Problem: Inadvertent perioperative hypothermia (IPH) is noted to be the most common surgical complication. IPH is associated with a variety of complications which are known to impact the well-being of the patient, family, and healthcare system.

PICOT: The PICOT question that guided this scholarly project was scheduled for total hip and knee arthroplasty surgical procedures under general or neuraxial anesthesia greater than 60 minutes (P), how effective is the implementation of an evidence-based pre-surgical warming protocol including forced-air warming (FAW) (I) compared to current practices (C) in improving normothermia readings within 15 minutes of arriving to the PACU, …

Why We Should Be Counting In The Cardiac Catheter Lab: A Discussion Paper, Stephanie Biggs, Paula Foran

Journal of Perioperative Nursing

The cardiac catheter laboratory, which in many health care facilities falls under the umbrella of perioperative services, generally sits geographically outside the traditional operating suite. Perhaps due in part to this geographical distance, standards that are routinely applied in the operating suite may not be applied in the cardiac catheter laboratory. One such standard is the management of accountable items such as swabs, surgical instruments, sharps and sheaths. Well-known standards and guidelines for managing accountable items recommend mandatory counting and documentation of all accountable items in environments where a surgical item may be left behind; yet, despite this, counting is …

Bridging The Gap: Preparing And Nurturing Novice Perioperative Nurses, Nick Nijkamp, Pauline Calleja, Ashlyn Sahay

Journal of Perioperative Nursing

Perioperative nursing is a highly specialised area within the nursing profession that relies on high levels of theoretical knowledge, clinical skill and critical thinking to maintain patient safety before, during and after surgical procedures. However, attrition rates and the impending retirement of experienced perioperative nurses have created a need to address the transition of novice nurses into this complex and multi-skilled environment.

Strategies To Optimise Culturally Appropriate Perioperative Care For Aboriginal And Torres Strait Islander Peoples: A Discussion Paper, Maureen Joye, Paula Foran

Journal of Perioperative Nursing

The disparity in health outcomes between Indigenous and non-indigenous Australians continues to increase. Barriers to accessing health care, particularly surgical treatment, contribute to health inequalities among Indigenous Australians. Despite a positive correlation between improved patient experiences and health outcomes, there is little research available on nursing interventions to improve Indigenous patients’ perioperative health care treatment.

This discussion paper investigates culturally appropriate and evidencebased nursing interventions that can be applied in the perioperative setting to improve the surgical experience of Indigenous patients. It was shown that establishing trust among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander patients through anaesthetic nurse practices and advocating …

Leading With Emotional Intelligence In Perioperative Nursing: An Integrative Review, Elise Rhodes, Paula Foran

Journal of Perioperative Nursing

Background: Emotional intelligence has increasingly become synonymous with effective leaders within successful organisations. The perioperative environment is a complex setting within an organisation that requires nurse leaders to possess self-awareness that allows them to understand and control their emotions while using this insight to benefit others. Perioperative nurse leaders can use their emotional intelligence to manage conflict, negotiate between multidisciplinary team members, motivate staff to provide high level safe patient care and promote a positive work culture that can increase staff retention.

Review methods: A literature search of databases of CINAHL, Pubmed, Medline and Scopus was conducted to extract qualitative, …

Identifying Barriers To Patient Advocacy In The Promotion Of A Safety Culture: An Integrative Review, Teena Shoemark, Paula Foran

Journal of Perioperative Nursing

Problem identification

Promoting patient safety, through patient advocacy, is an important part of the perioperative nurse role. However, identified barriers to effective patient advocacy have also reflected deficits in the characteristics of safety culture. This integrative review aims to highlight these barriers and discuss strategies for promoting patient safety within the perioperative context by presenting links between patient advocacy and safety culture.

Literature search

An electronic search of the databases, EBSCOhost, Academic search ultimate, Cumulative Index Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), Healthsource, MEDLINE and PubMed, was undertaken and yielded ten articles for inclusion. Primary research included in this review …

A Multimodal Analgesic Virtual Reality Program To Reduce Opioid Exposure, Jessica Hovland

Student Scholarly Projects

The opioid crisis continues to be a public health concern. Traditionally, an opioid-centric approach treats postoperative pain.

The following PICOT question guided this project: Will initiating a multimodal analgesic virtual reality quality improvement program (I) compared to current practice (C) decrease opioid requirements (O) in robotic hysterectomy patients (P) during the postoperative period (T)? Several articles promote non-opioid analgesia and non-pharmacological interventions, such as multimodal analgesia and virtual reality (VR) for pain management.

This project reviewed pre- and post-implementation data after implementing new evidence-based multimodal analgesia and VR protocols. The project captured a total of 64 patients in the pre-implementation …

Perioperative Nurses’ Engagement With The Surgical Safety Checklist: A Focused Ethnography, Julie A. Rogers, Paul Mcleish, Jan Alderman

Journal of Perioperative Nursing

Purpose

To gain greater insight into how nurses engage with the multidisciplinary team during the surgical safety checklist process.

Participants and setting

Participants were a purposeful sample of eight operating room nurses. The study was conducted in the operating room department of a major tertiary teaching hospital in South Australia.

Methods

Phase 1 employed participant observations while phase 2 employed semi-structured interviews.

Findings

Participants supported the use of the surgical safety checklist and valued its role to enhance patient safety. Multidisciplinary team culture played a significant role in how the checklist was conducted and heavily influenced the level of nurse …

The Perioperative Nurse Surgical Assitant (Pnsa) Of The Future, Olivia Sonneborn

Journal of Perioperative Nursing

Advanced practice nurse (APN) roles have been implemented across all areas of the Australian health service and have extended into the perioperative environment in the form of the perioperative nurse surgical assistant (PNSA) or non-medical surgical assistant (NMSA). With a growing and ageing population, Australia will see an increased demand for acute care nurses. For the PNSA role to expand to meet this demand, the role requires recognition and regulation in Australia. Education programs also need to meet the increasing demand for acute care nursing and provide quality, accessible and collaborative education programs to meet the needs of all nurses …

Changing Workplace Culture: What Would It Take To Speak Up?, Sandra Millis

Journal of Perioperative Nursing

Bullying in the health care environment historically has been tolerated and, in many cases, expected. The Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 has provided the necessary legislation to stimulate a move toward addressing the bullying culture within New Zealand hospitals. This article takes a reflective look at how speaking up about bullying, although difficult, is important in order to change workplace culture.

Perioperative Nurses’ Perceptions Of Cross-Training: A Qualitative Descriptive Study, Mellisa S. Platt, Tracey Coventry, Leanne Monterosso

Journal of Perioperative Nursing

Purpose: To investigate the perceptions of perioperative nurses regarding the use and impact of cross-training in the perioperative department. Participants and setting: Scrub and scout perioperative nurses (n=8) who had completed a one-day recovery room cross-training program in a large tertiary private health care organisation in Western Australia.

Method: One-to-one, semi-structured interviews of perioperative scrub–scout nurses.

Findings: The participants perceived the positive aspects of cross-training were teamwork, professional satisfaction and added value to patient care. The aspects that inhibited participants from learning or taking part in the cross-training program were staffing issues, lack of confidence and burnout.

Conclusion: Cross-training supported …

Changing The Standard Of Blood Management In Australia: An Overview, Alana Delaforce, Jed Duff, Nicholas Ralph

Journal of Perioperative Nursing

No abstract provided.

Reshaping Perioperative Nursing Practice To Get The Job Done: A Constructivist Grounded Theory Study, Sharon Bingham, Kenneth Walsh, Karen Ford

Journal of Perioperative Nursing

No abstract provided.

Innovations In Postgraduate Work Integrated Learning Within The Perioperative Nursing Environment: A Western Australian Experience, Kylie Russell, Tracey Coventry

Journal of Perioperative Nursing

A key expectation from the health care industry in Australia is that nurses engaged in postgraduate specialist education need to be able to apply their extended knowledge and skills to the workplace. For this to succeed, health services need to be involved in the development of course content and learning outcomes to ensure authentic engagement. Essential to this is student participation in workplace learning that provides experience, performance feedback and reflection. This promotes graduate success to meet industry expectations.

The Graduate Diploma of Perioperative Nursing aims to develop graduates with not only the knowledge of good perioperative nursing practice but …

Factors That Predict Evidence Use By Australian Perioperative Nurses, Jed Duff, Margaret Butler, Menna Davies, Robyn Williams, Jannelle Carlile

Journal of Perioperative Nursing

Evidence-based practice has been demonstrated to positively impact patient outcomes; unfortunately, there are many factors that hinder the use of research evidence by healthcare clinicians. Our previous study reported a multisite survey assessing Australian perioperative nurses knowledge, practice, attitude, and perceived barriers to evidence use. This subsequent analysis used univariate and multivariate binary logistic regression with odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) to compare individual nurse and organisational characteristics with high evidence-basad practice (EBP) use. Two individual nurse characteristics found to be related to EBP were postgraduate qualifications (OR 1.69, 95% CI 1.07–2.6, p=0.02) and previous research experience …