Celebrating Nurses’ Monumental Impact
There is a myriad of ways to participate in National Nurses Week, which is celebrated May 6-12, from honoring your staff RNs with a gift or event to taking steps to let...
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By: OSD Staff
Published: 10/6/2015
Dry Time Countdown
Let Surface Disinfectants and Skin Preps Dry
You'll find little digital timers all around my surgery center: around the PACU beds, on the back tables and on whatever surfaces we disinfect. They ensure that we let skin preps dry before we drape and that surface disinfectants stay visibly wet for the contact time listed on the label. For both, it's usually a minimum of 3 minutes.
Our solution: We bought inexpensive timers for every area we disinfect, and one for each OR. We pre-set them for the required kill-time for our disinfectants and for 3 minutes for skin preps. Once the prep is completed, we start the timer and document in our nursing notes that we let the prep dry for a minimum of 3 minutes. This protects your patients, lets the prep work most effectively and minimizes the risk of igniting alcohol-based preps during surgery. Same goes for surface disinfection: Wipe the area with your preferred disinfectant and let it remains visibly wet for the recommended kill time by applying the solution or using more wipes as needed.
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