Perioperative Nursing Case Study

Mr Edward Sales, RN, BSN, is a perioperative nurse in a 6 beds Operating Room unit. He is the Urology Lead RN, Orthopedics/Spine Service Second Lead RN, and also functions as the Acting Unit Flow Coordinator (in the absence of the Unit Coordinator). Over the past several years, Mr Sales has demonstrated continued leadership in Perioperative Nursing practice. His contributions to this area of practice have positively influenced client care at the nursing service and across the local medical center.

Mr. Edward Sales is a role model in the application of the nursing process. He has identified numerous patient care issues through his expert clinical and administrative assessment abilities. He has been a leader in championing processes including

He is consistently sought out as a resource and leader, by members of the interdisciplinary team, regarding ethical dilemmas, particularly issues surrounding orthopedic and spine trauma patients and their unique needs. He is a role model for patient advocacy and shares his perioperative knowledge and expertise beyond the medical center by being a resource and educating various professional/ medical vendors on surgical patient care and other healthcare issues. For example, as the new urology surgeon increased scheduling cases, Mr Sales recommended the need for an in-service to be conducted for the interdisciplinary team involved in the care of urology surgical patients. The surgeon specifically commended Mr Sales to co-present a multi-disciplinary in-service class – surgical laser safety for urology cases. The presentation received outstanding evaluations from the nursing, radiology, EMS and surgical team. The presentation has resulted in increased efficiency in turn-over of urology surgical cases, instrumentations and communications among varied departments. Beyond Mr Sales’ ability to manage numerous patient care units, assessing human and material assets are appropriately

Because of his leadership abilities, he is often sought out to evaluate program and service activities. For example, he utilized this recognized body of evidence to form and lead a team that evaluated and developed a standardized preference cards, an effective orthopedics and urology instrumentation handlings, an effective communication intra-and-interdepartmentally, and perioperative nursing competency process for this program. He was able to funnel creative recommendations from his team into practical applications beyond the application of this process on the perioperative, SPS and surgical units. Through a review of CMS, Joint Commission, and AORN standards, he identified a comprehensive ortho and neuro-competency, and urology competency process for the surgical interdisciplinary staff. During the process, he ensures that every member of the team identify goals and measurable outcomes; quickly and accurately calibrates project priorities; cultivates a culture of openness while building consensus among the group; and actively collaborating multidisciplinary team actions toward a common goal. The implementation of the process lead to decreased cancellation of cases due to compromised instrumentation, failed timely processing of limited positioners and inadequate/incomplete unit preparation of the complex surgical cases. This has also resulted to increased