Key points from today’s guests:

Lorie Hassel-Chuang, R.N., nurse educator, Bell Operating Room, The University of Kansas Health System

• Lorie saw an opportunity to improve the workflow inside the operating room and more importantly, she spoke up and put in the work to make her improvement a reality.
• Her idea involves sterile sponges. Those cloth ones used to soak up blood and keep things clean during the surgery. It is of course critically important to keep track of those sponges and not leave any of them inside a patient.
• Without the sterile field, we have no safety for our patients, so we always want to prevent surgical site infections.
• Hundreds of pieces of equipment are used during surgeries, including many different quantities of sponges, depending on the procedure.
• One retained surgical item is too many. So when we count sponges after a procedure, we want to account for them all.
• This idea is a prototype – telescopic SAS -- that provides an easier way to see all of the sponges removed to ensure they are accounted for. It is also a time-saver.
• If we can get this idea to other hospitals, this could help patients around the world.

Tiel Sanders, R.N., operating room nurse, The University of Kansas Health System

• Everything is that we place into the sterile field, we count that item. And that is very important, and that's where Lori's invention comes in.
• It makes it so much easier for nurses to count sponges and can help improve patient safety.
• One of our most important sponges is laparotomy sponge and we use that during the surgery to basically stop the bleeding.
• The other process to count sponges can be time-consuming.
• The operating room is hard work, but a very rewarding job for nurses.
• No matter what part of nursing you are in, you can always bring new ideas.

Dr. Dana Hawkinson, M.D., medical director of Infection Prevention and Control, The University of Kansas Health System

• Respiratory viruses -- influenza, RSV, and COVID -- are continuing to tail off throughout the country.
• Avian flu is a huge concern for dairy cows and people who work around dairy cows. There is exactly one known case of the virus jumping from cow to human.
• They've also seen it in other animals such as goats, cats and other animals.
• There is a concern that there could be more infections in humans and especially more infections that really go undiagnosed.
• We need to continue to have increased surveillance around the country, both in our animals, but also in humans so we are looking for symptoms.
• There's not a lot of danger of sustained human to human transmission. There is the possibility that other humans have been infected, we just haven't diagnosed it, but we need to continue to be vigilant and monitor.

Tuesday, May 7 at 8 a.m. is the next Morning Medical Update. Hear about one of our smallest patients with some of the biggest needs. We check in on our neonatal medical home celebrating 11 years and making life better for babies.

ATTENTION MEDIA: Please note access is with Microsoft Teams:

Join on your computer or mobile app

Click here to join the meeting

Meeting ID: 235 659 792 451
Passcode: 6CSfGE

Download Teams | Join on the web

Or call in (audio only)

+1 913-318-8863,566341546#   United States, Kansas City

TVU Grid link: UoK_Health_SDI

Restream links: Facebook.com/kuhospital

YouTube.com/kuhospital

Send advance questions to medicalnewsnetwork@kumc.edu.