skin prep

Specialties Operating Room

Published

I am looking for some literature on the use of betadine skin prep, in the hospitals i've worked they use multi use bottles. Having done some research on this there is evidence to suggest these bottles could become contaminated. My question is do any hospitals use single patient use skin prep if so is there evidence in your hospital to back up this practice, any advice will be greatly appreciated.....thanks!!

Specializes in 5 yrs OR, ASU Pre-Op 2 yr. ER.

We ONLY use single use prep, whether it's betadine paint sticks or scrub, ChlorPrep, Duraprep. Our infection rate is 1% (ONE percent), and i feel that the prep is definitly a component in that.

Betadine is the worst for skin prep. But we use it all the time. If you read the bottle it tells you that betadine will break down roughly at about body temperature (36.4 degrees)

When i was in nursing school i took 5 different kinds of scrub soaps to microbiology class. I put each one on a petri dish and swabbed lots of bacteria. Chlorahexidine(hibacleanse) did the best and betadine did the absolute worst. The petri dish overflowed with colonies. YUK:uhoh3: :o :uhoh3: :o .

And even worst, many moons (years) ago we used to put betadine in the warmer for comfort measures. I guess that was like painting on water. who knows.......... anyway i like to use duraprep(has alcohol) or chlorohexidine. But those are not the prep of choice usually.

we trialed the new teal-colored chlorprep over the past month, and wow - we love them. no issues (so far) with postop infection, and it is a beautifully fast scrub. you have to wait 3 minutes to let it dry before you can use an esu, but by the time everyone is scrubbed, and the pt is draped and setup, it's perfectly dry. everyone's been asking for them since the trial finished, and we've had reports of people hoarding them!

Specializes in 5 yrs OR, ASU Pre-Op 2 yr. ER.
we trialed the new teal-colored chlorprep over the past month, and wow - we love them

we love that stuff too. we use to have the clear version, bit you could barely see where you had prepped at with it.

unfortunately, when using clorprep, we've had issues with ioban not sticking to the skin after the chlorprep is used.

Can either of you direct me to any articles or journals on the topic of single use skin prep, i'm currently doing a research proposal on this. There must be some literature out there why single use is used instead of multi use....Thanks!

My wife and I have never used anything but single use containers. They come in the prep sets and there is nothing like what you are talking about to worry over. Any solution left in a bottle and used multiple times runs the risk of being contaminated over time.

Specializes in surgical, emergency.

We use Dura prep for the most, but still have stock bottles of Betadine Scrub, Solution and Hibiclens.

I know stock bottles are a throw back, but we have had little problems.

We are getting ready to try those Chlorapreps, pale green, I heard.

We are already using the clean ones for IV, central line starts.

My question, what do you all use for perineal and lady partsl preps???

If you read the lit. none of these really fit.

Mike

Specializes in 5 yrs OR, ASU Pre-Op 2 yr. ER.

We use the betadine prep sticks for lady partsl and perineal preps.

We have stopped using alcohol or alcohol based preps due to OR fires.

We are using Technicare for our lady partsl preps. Is anyone else using this product?

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