Breakfast & Presentation: Environmental Cleaning in the Operating Room presented by Medline

After this session you'll be able to:

• State the rationale for providing a clean operating room to surgical patients.
• Describe how to choose the appropriate cleaning solutions for cleaning the OR.
• Explain the steps to readying the OR for the first case of the day.
• Define interim cleaning and what it entails.
• Discuss terminal cleaning, periodic scheduled cleaning, and technologies used in the process.

Why this is important:

The operating room environment plays an important role in preventing the development of infections during and after surgery. Some surgical site infections (SSIs) are caused by multi-drug resistant organisms which make treatment and resolution difficult. Sterile instruments, surgical attire, air quality control and sterile technique are a few of the ways to keep surgical patients free of infections.

Cleaning and disinfection of perioperative areas is essential to preventing the spread of potentially pathogenic microorganisms. Despite the importance of environmental cleaning for the prevention of pathogen transmission, cleaning practices in Operating Rooms (ORs) often fall short of the requirements for maintaining the OR as clean as possible. This program will describe actions that keep the perioperative environment as clean and free of microorganisms as possible, with an emphasis on guidelines and procedures that are thorough and efficient.