AORN Journal
Volume 87, Issue 2 , Pages 322-328, February 2008

Trauma: When There's No Time to Count

  • Darlene B. Murdock, RN, BSN, CNOR

      Affiliations

    • Darlene B. Murdock, RN, BSN, CNOR, was the night shift OR charge nurse at Memorial Hermann Hospital, Houston, TX, at the time this article was written. Ms Murdock has no declared affiliation that could be perceived as a potential conflict of interest in publishing this article.

ABSTRACT 

TRAUMA IS THE LEADING CAUSE OF DEATH for people younger than age 45 in the United States. To help prevent death or disability, critically in jured trauma patients must reach definitive care within the “golden hour.”

OFTEN, THE PERIOPERATIVE TEAM has no more than 10 minutes to prepare the room before a patient who has suffered multiple, critical, traumatic injuries is rushed into the OR.

FOR THE TRAUMA PATIENT'S SAFETY, the perioperative team must be diligent and use creative measures to efficiently ensure that all surgical counts are completed. Foregoing surgical counts places the trauma patient at an increased risk for unintentionally retained foreign objects.

 

  indicates that continuing education contact hours are available for this activity. Earn 3.1 contact hours by reading this article and the preceding article and taking the examination on pages 329–330 and then completing the answer sheet and learner evaluation on pages 331–332.You also may access these articles online at http://www.aornjournal.org.

PII: S0001-2092(07)00446-2

doi:10.1016/j.aorn.2007.07.008

AORN Journal
Volume 87, Issue 2 , Pages 322-328, February 2008

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