Infection Control Today - 03/2003: AORN Congress Offers Something forEveryone

AORN Congress Offers Something for Everyone

By Donna Watson, RN, MSN, CNOR, ARNP, FNP

Theupcoming AORN Congress, March 23-27, 2003 in Chicago, reflects a wide range ofissues and topics of interest to perioperative registered nurses, centralservice/sterile processing professionals and infection control professionals.AORN has worked hard to put together a thought-provoking education program withsomething for everyone, including managers, those with a clinical focus, andstudents and faculty. A common theme of patient safety will tie sessions to abroader message that AORN members put our patients' safety first above all else.

AORN's Education Sessions:

• Provide information related to current issues, trends, and future challenges affecting perioperative nursing practice;

• Provide insight into major perioperative safety trends;

• Identify clinical, leadership, management, and education strategies to improve patient outcomes;

• Explore strategies for increasing the voice of perioperative nurses in the legislative health policy arena;

• Enhance attendee personal and professional skills.

In addition to education sessions of particular interest to infection controlprofessionals, nationally recognized speakers will be featured, including thefollowing:

• Julianne M. Morath, RN, MS, winner of the 2002 John M. Eisenberg Patient Safety Award. Morath will speak in relation to the science of safety and lessons learned from high reliability organizations, in which failure is not an option, to the high-risk complexity of the perioperative environment.

• John Nance, a well recognized broadcast journalist, pilot and a nationally known author of both fiction and non-fiction books will speak to working in the perioperative setting, which means working at "the sharp end" of a complex human system where penalty for failure is very great in both human and monetary terms. The healthcare professions do not have an exclusive franchise on life at the sharp end. Other businesses and professions exist that also face a continuous human and monetary penalty for any significant failure or incapacity, among them the nuclear power industry and perhaps most widespread, aviation. Nance discusses the principles that aviation has implemented to improve safety, which can be applied to health care and specifically the perioperative arena.

• H. Ross Perot will discuss his perspective on the significance of nursing leadership in healthcare.

Other speakers include Donna Cardillo, RN, MS; Karyn Buxman, RN, CSP, CPAE;Keith Harrell; and Lyn St. James.

Education sessions of particular interest to infection control professionalsinclude:

Policymaking/legislative

Session 7007, Stuck on You: Prevent Sharps Injury features up-to-dateconcepts to provide managers, educators, and epidemiology department staff witha tracking method for compliance with sharps safety.

Communication

Session 7012, Systematically Implementing an SUD Reprocessing Program, bringstogether industry educators, infection control practitioners, central servicemanagers, and AORN members who have successfully implemented single-use devicereprocessing programs to share their experiences.

Clinical

Session 7025, Barrier Protection - The Latest Information, comparesdifferences in surgical hand scrub preparations and barrier materials.Additional discussion centers around skin cleansing agents and how they mustcomplement barrier protective devices; not all products will work in everyclinical application, and other interesting points.

Issues - National scope

Session 7026, Surgical Infection Prevention Project, features Peter Houck,MD, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, who provides a brief overview ofa national surgical infection prevention project (SIP), modifications made sincethe beginning of the project, and progress made during the first months of theproject.

Issues - International scope

Session 7042, A Global Approach to In-Pack Monitoring, introducesInternational Standards relevant to sterilization monitoring. Steamsterilization represents 95 percent of all world processes. The criticalparameters are time, good quality steam, and temperature. Physical monitors on asterilizer are generated from one point in the chamber and cannot, therefore,indicate whether all critical parameters have been reached inside each pack. Forpersonnel and patients, it is vital that evidence of these parameters beingachieved is available.

Clinical

Session 7045, Update on Glove-Associated Reactions That Impact OR Staff andPatients, compares three types of reactions associated with wearinggloves--irritant dermatitis, allergic contact dermatitis (ie, type IV), andlatex allergy (ie, Type I, immediate type hypersensitivity). Additionaldiscussions center around patient complications and how inappropriateimplementation of the new hygiene guidelines could adversely affect glovebarrier quality.

For more information or to register, visit AORN Online at http://www.aorn.orgor contact AORN Customer Service at (800) 755-2676, ext 1.

Donna Watson, RN, MSN, CNOR, ARNP, FNP is president of the Association ofperiOperative Registered Nurses.