Standing Orders in the OR

[Ilovethe80s]

Does your OR have standing orders for things like putting in a foley, meds (local, abx), positioning equipment? Or, do your physician preference cards count as a sort of standing order? The OR is the only place I've ever worked as a nurse and I've been in the OR for about a year, so I don't have anywhere else to compare policies and procedures. We only have preference cards or writing in orders on the physician order sheet, but may be getting standing orders (like many of the floors and PACU have). I think standing orders for things like foley's and meds would be better. Just curious to know how other organizations do it.

[cathynickelson]

we have both preference cards and standing orders.The preference cards for equipment,positioning,local etc the standing intra op orders cover a little more such as labs or drains

[RNJohnny23]

I've worked in a few different hospitals and OR's. In all of them the surgeon signs the OR record which I would argue validates all meds, positioning, etc. Anesthesia usually charts whatever they've asked me to give as though they gave it. Standing orders are good, but redundant if the same information is on a preference card. I've heard of OR's where the Circulator has to write a verbal order for everything and the surgeon signs it later. This also seems redundant and silly, especially if the surgeon signs the record too.

The environment is very different from floor nursing and many of the familiar things are altered or not present. One simply has to get used to these differences. Or not.