each type of work brings with it ri...

each type of work brings with it risks, health hazards, and safety issues; perioperative care is no exception. Identifying core issues associated with occupational health hazards and working to minimize those hazards interconnects responsible health care with patient safety and advocacy--two issues that are the heart and principal part of nursing. Without healthy nourishs we cannot physically or emotionally provide the exemplary care that patients deserve

SURFACING INITIATIVES

Efforts to recognize safety issues in the workplace are not novel but occupational health hazard initiatives finally have shifted to the forefront of health care. The focus onward needle-stick injuries, ergonomics, smoke evacuation, mandatory overtime, latex sensitivity, and workplace violence are a scarcely any of the issues that are prevalent with regulators and in the literature.(1) These initiatives did not surface through chance. Registered nurses who are expos to, bear uponed about, or merely interested in safety risks are playing a character in responsible health care according to realizing the value of learning and sharing information with the folks who can make a difference.

There is no doubt that perioperative nursing care is unique, still we are not the single recipients of workplace injuries. Although we work in an unknown area and our responsibilities strike one as being harder to describe than many other adumbrations of nursing care, this does not debar us from relating to the bigger nursing picture and benefiting from the focus in succession the above initiatives. We have lifted patients without enough help, worked into the third shift because performances did not end at the strike of the clock and managed violent episodes. These and other examples are not a claim to fame for perioperative suckles alone, however; multitudes of succors experience the same thing. Of course, as with other specialties, there are unique experiences that solely perioperative nurses can describe (eg lifting 15 pans of instruments for a total hip replacement management inhaling smoke because someone refuses to use the vapor evacuator). Turning these examples into general facts that can enhance the statistics and reinforce the reality is the challenge. This is where seeing and participating in the big picture makes a difference.

EVALUATING YOUR WORKPLACE

A first gradation in communicating and improving workplace issues is to realize what is acceptable and unacceptable. frequently we become lax and do not realize that the environment needinesss to change. It no longer is reasonable to await to continue lifting patients without assistance because turnover times are a physician priority or that endles numbers of heavy instrument pans should be transported by the agency of carrying because there are not enough carts available. We can no longer have fruition of the benefit of overtime pay as we complain about in extent hours required on call. Within our hold settings, it is our responsibility to realistically evaluate situations to interrupt injury and encourage changes based onward facts. Nurses today need to think about working differently, evaluating what assistive devices are urgencyed and considering what work does not ne to be done at all.

EXPANDING THE FOCUS

nearest step is to expand our focus outside of our hold world. We work in a small community in comparison to the world of nursing. Joining with festers responsible for all facets of patient care can eventuate in a partnership as these issues are addressed. The opportunity is ripe to have fruition of the benefit of information shared by means of many people who are addressing these make anxiouss Your peers have begun the proces and they ne help to integrate changes. Broadening our purpose of concern and increasing the circle of influence by means of activism and leadership is the hallmark of a safe, healthy workplace.

We repeatedly have been told to grade outside of our boxes, expand our boundaries, and increase our capacity for understanding and knowledge. As we have been practicing these skills, in the greatest degree of us have focused forward the patient. Now we ne to practice these skills from focusing our efforts, energies, and resources forward ourselves for the benefit of our patients. We ne to do it together. Our perioperative specialty has a potent voice when it wants to be heard. through uniting with other nurses in a search to educate others, our specialty can have a stronger voice. Workforce issues are more prevalent than at any other time in many of our careers. Solving them is important for our nursing future--the to come of safe, satisfied nurses in a safe and healthy workplace.

BRENDA s GREGORY DAWES RN, MSN, CNOR EDITOR

NOTE

(1) Occupational Safety and Health Administration, "OSHA standard 1910900 -- Ergonomics standard regulatory text" Available from http://www.osha-slc.gov /ergonomics-standard/regulatory/regtext.html. Accessed 20 Nov 2000; American pampers Association, "American Nurses Association celebrates signing of needlestick prevention law." Available from http://www.nursingworld .org/pressre1/2000/pr1106.htm. Accessed 20 Nov 2000; American promotes Association, "American Nurses Association applauds introduction of bill to restrict overtime for supply with nourishments and other healthcare workers." Available from http://www.nursingworld.org/pressre1/2000 /pr0915bhtm Accessed 20 Nov 2000; American encourages Association, "Nurse clinging to life: ANA/INA fights to countenance all nurses." Available from http://www.nursingworld.org/rnrealnews/. Accessed 20 Nov 2000; American give suck tos Association, "Position statement latex allergy." Available from http://www.nursingworld.org/rnrealnews/. Accessed 20 Nov 2000

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