IN FOCUS
EDUCATION
Preparing OB nurses for the OR
By Carina Stanton
Senior News Editor
More than 125 labor and delivery nurses at St. Luke's Regional Health System in Boise, Idaho, work in the OR, providing care for patients undergoing invasive procedures, such as C-sections, tubal ligations and emergency hysterectomies.
Until recently, AORN perioperative education was not part of these nurses' job preparation, but that has changed through collaboration with AORN.
Earlier this year, labor and delivery directors and nurse clinical educators from St. Luke's approached AORN about getting a tailored version of the association's Periop 101: A Core Curriculum™ to better prepare their labor and delivery nurses for the OR.
"As a Magnet facility we are dedicated to providing the same standard of care for every surgical patient, whether they are in the main OR or the labor and delivery OR," said Katie Schimmelpfennig, RNC-OB, clinical instructor of women's at St. Luke's Regional Medical Center in Boise and St. Luke's Meridian Medical Center in Meridian, Idaho, just outside of Boise.
Schimmelpfennig and her educator colleagues, Teresa Stanfill, RN, Tania Hansen, RN, and Claire Beck, RN, went to the perioperative educator for their facility's OR and learned about AORN's Periop 101 course. Their next step was to begin working with Susan Root, RN, MSN, CNOR, manager of education products in AORN's Center for Perioperative Education. Soon after, their facilities at Meridian and Boise became beta-testing sites to put labor and delivery nurses through Periop 101, with the end goal of providing AORN with feedback to help tailor the course for labor and delivery nurses.
"We learned early on that certain modules in the curriculum like minimally invasive surgery and lasers were not relevant for these nurses, so we took these modules out of the program. We also asked each student who finished the course a series of questions, including what they learned that was most valuable for their practice and what they needed more information on," Root said. "We recognize that the surgical patients these nurses care for require unique care, and we wanted to learn more about this from the nurses testing this course."
Root hopes to take this feedback and knowledge to refine a formal Periop 101 course tailored for labor and delivery nurses.
To date, 50 labor and delivery nurses at St. Luke's have completed the Periop 101 course. As administrators for the course, Schimmelpfennig and colleagues are now looking at ways they could supplement the AORN course with their own specific labor and delivery education.
"Our labor and delivery nurses are very vocal in sharing what is most relevant from taking this educational introduction to the OR, because they want to learn and provide the best care possible for their patients," Schimmelpfennig added.
Due to the costs associated with providing this education, she is preparing to advocate for the continuation of this formal perioperative labor and delivery course to her hospital administrators. As part of this process, they continue to gather data on things like infection rates and physician satisfaction following the course. She is also sharing the evaluation forms from those nurses who have completed the course.
"The bottom line for all of us is to improve patient safety. After completing the course, these nurses are more aware of their role as circulator in the OR and that is so beneficial to our nurses and our patients," Schimmelpfennig said.
For more information on AORN's Periop 101: A Core Curriculum™, visit aorn.org/ResourceCentral.
Read more news in AORN Connections.