(c) Team members should not talk except when essential. Silence
assists masking to reduce the number of organisms spread from nose and throat.
(d) Team members should avoid sneezing and coughing if possible.
(e) Persons who have colds or any active infection should be excluded
from the OR.
(f) The scrub should cover the sterile tables with sterile drapes if an
operation is delayed.
(g) Main corridors are considered contaminated areas; therefore, doors
from corridors into the ORs should be kept closed. Sterile items without
wrappers should not be carried through corridors. (Note the scrub room and the
sterilizing area open directly into an OR in figure 1-3.) If "sterile" team
members must go out into the corridor, they should change their gowns and gloves
upon returning to the room.
(h) Walking through and around the OR should be kept to
the necessary minimum.
(i) Visitors should sit in an observation balcony. If the entrance to this
balcony is inside the surgical suite, visitors will be required to change into scrub clothes.
(j) All dusting should be damp dusting with a germicide solution.
Floors should be wet-vacuumed between cases as well as at the end of the day. Dry
dusting and dry mopping should be avoided in the OR, as the dust created
by use of such methods would continue to settle or float in the room for hours.
(k) Powder is no longer used in the glowing process because it is likely
to drift in the air, and it may cause adhesions in the surgical wound as it heals.
Disposable gloves are slightly powdered, and even this is always rinsed off with sterile
normal saline solution.
(l)
Scrub clothes will not be worn outside the surgical suite.
(m) The bedclothes over the patient should be handled gently when he
is being transferred to the operating table to avoid throwing lint off into the air. Local
policy may require bedclothes to be removed in an interchange area prior to the entry in
the OR; nevertheless, the patient should be covered with a cover sheet.
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