- COVID-19
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by feed_admin
COVID-19 has dominated the headlines for months, and with good reason. The pandemic has disrupted life as we know it on a global scale.
For the surgical community, COVID-19 meant that many elective surgeries had to be canceled due to a lack of staff or quarantine mandates. But now that the threat of COVID-19 seems to be relaxing its death grip somewhat, administrators and surgeons are starting to wonder: what’s next?
After a long absence caused by the overwhelming patient load triggered by COVID-19, all those postponed elective surgeries are still waiting in the wings, needing to be scheduled and addressed. To safely undertake that huge backlog, it will be necessary to consider the safety of patients and hospital personnel and to make decisions about which surgeries should be prioritized.
What to expect
Any hospital preparing to open its schedule to include elective surgeries must also be in touch with local directives on managing COVID-19, given that government agencies will have a big impact on what can safely be done in the local community. There are pockets of the country where the pandemic still holds powerful sway, and that means resources will probably be allocated toward these patients rather than electives. It may also be necessary to conduct additional training among hospital personnel to ensure they don’t start relaxing their attention and make themselves more susceptible to contracting a disease.
How to prepare
A good first preparatory step would be to create some material that can be distributed to would-be patients, informing them of safety measures so they won’t worry about being infected with COVID-19. It will be necessary to have pre-surgery COVID testing done on each patient to ensure that the virus doesn’t get passed on to anyone involved. There must be a great deal of emphasis placed on the safety of hospital workers as well, ensuring that they aren’t exposed to the disease by the influx of patients.
Another good move would be to implement any new efficiencies in the Operating Room to increase productivity and profitability. By installing the DinamicOR Back Table Solution in each OR, your hospital can streamline its procedures and be sure all personnel are on the same page. The well-organized Back Table itself makes virtually all medical tools and implements visible, so they can be efficiently retrieved and used at a moment’s notice. You can use the DinamicOR+ Workflow Management App, a component of the Back Table Solution, to store all procedures for quicker setup, and so surgical staff can use them for training and onboarding of new personnel.
It will undoubtedly be a somewhat bumpy road returning to a schedule of elective surgeries for most hospitals. But bumpy doesn’t have to mean hard if you amp up your efficiencies and do your due diligence.
Contact us to learn more about how the DinamicOR Back Table Solution can help your team achieve operating room efficiency, or to schedule a live demonstration. We’re here to help you get your efficiencies
