There is increasing awareness of the need to warm patients with forced air or other warming devices, but infusion and insufflation of cold fluids and gas can also contribute to inadvertent perioperative hypothermia. Now there is increasing interest in the role of nutrition in maintaining normothermia.
Although it is widely acknowledged that inadvertent perioperative hypothermia is associated with poorer surgical outcomes, patients continue to leave the theatre in a hypothermic state – increasing their risks of surgical site infection, cardiac complications, bleeding and mortality. A study by Dr Esther Godfrey and colleagues, from the department of anaesthesia, at the Royal Gwent Hospital, showed that hypothermia occurs in around half of patients undergoing surgery – despite national guidelines for its prevention.1
NICE Guidance
So, what exactly does best practice look like? NICE guidance2 states that the patient’s temperature should be measured and documented in the hour before they leave the ward or emergency department. If the patient’s temperature is below 36.0˚C, active warming should be started preoperatively on the ward or in the emergency department (unless there is a need to expedite surgery because of clinical urgency).
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