Improving theatres

[Hannah20]

Hiya, my name is Hannah and im a student nurse in my third year. For my research project, i need to come up with a small idea that would be cost effective to could improve the health service and patient care. I would love to work in the theatre department so i need to focus my project there.

I was wondering if anyone had any experiences or incidents within the theatre department that could be improved? Or if you work in theartres and there is anything you would like to see changed, I would love to here from you! Thankyou

[tyvin, BSN, RN]

Define "theatre department" please.

[K+MgSO4, BSN]

The OR

[Scrubby]

They are called operating theatres because they actually used to be a theatre. In the good old days students would watch operations and they had three tiered seats. The term is still used in Australia.

http://www.timeout.com/london/museums-attractions/event/63978/old-operating-theatre-museum

Hannah20-Sounds like a very interesting assignment.

Personally I believe that the most cost effective way of improving efficiency in the OR is to have dedicated speciality teams of nurses in each clinic.

There is nothing worse than having to work in a different surgical speciality everyday because the technology keeps evolving and there are different instruments, equipment and surgical requirements. Our department had a real problem with this very issue. You'd be expected to scrub for a revision of a hip one day, and a laparoscopic gastric bypass the next. Nurses were unhappy being moved from pillar to post and surgeons complained because the nurses were running around trying to find special instruments and not knowing the cases. So we moved to keeping nurses in one or two areas. When you really know your speciality you can troubleshoot when things go wrong, there are less surgical delays and the quality of care improves through better teamwork.

[tyvin, BSN, RN]

Scrubby that was a great link; I never have seen and did not know that theater use to be and could be spelled with an re instead of the er. Thanks

[Hannah20]

Thankyou so much for your replies, i really appreciate it!

By 'theatre department' I mean anything and everything from checking the patients when they arrive in the theatre to them leaving recovery.

I couldnt agree more on nurses specialising in threatres, it makes so much sense and life much easier for everyone! This would have been perfect for my project but as its already done, i cant use it =(

That link was really interesting, thanks!