NUMBERING SYSTEM Magnets help to reserve stretchers in use by the team inside the OR.

RESERVED TRANSPORTATION
Number Your Stretchers to Match Your ORs

When your patient is on the OR table, you usually park the stretcher that brought him there outside. Unless, that is, someone else has taken it away, cleaned it off (or didn't?) and put another pre-op patient on it.

To help reserve stretchers that are in use, we number a few magnetic-backed cards that we found at an office supply store and stick them to each OR door frame (number the cards to correspond to each OR). When a stretcher is brought to the OR, we take a numbered card off the OR door frame and affix it to the stretcher. By identifying that stretcher with that OR, you know it'll be right where you left it when you need it again. When the stretcher returns to transport the patient to post-op, we remove the magnetic card from the stretcher and place it back on the door.

Kristi Plank, BSN, RN
Cartersville (Ga.) Medical Center
[email protected]