HCB News: How does AORN advocate for perioperative nurses in terms of professional development, continuing education, and workplace policies?
CB: AORN provides the primary course through which hundreds of thousands of RNs have trained to become perioperative nurses, and we develop education and other content to support their evidence-based lifelong learning. Not only does AORN write the recommendations for patient and team safety in the Guidelines for Perioperative Practice, but we also gather member and learner feedback on clinical challenges to tailor on-demand and live education to meet their needs and help them grow and develop in their career path.

AORN’s participates in collaboration and partnership with our peer nursing associations. This collegial relationship leads to co-developed content, learning what works well to provide education content, and how we can best partner to develop and disseminate content. The AORN advocacy team supports smoke safety and legislation which includes educating our colleagues and supports perioperative team member education to support safety. Position statements are developed and available to members that range in topic from a circulator in each operating room to advanced practice nursing in perioperative services. This is in addition to the policy and procedure samples provided in the guideline tools that support the perioperative leader, educator, and staff person.
Content is offered by AORN on a variety of platforms to include virtual, in person, on-demand learning, recorded content, and with printed materials. In listening to our learners, we offer closed captioning, language translation of content to Spanish, the ability to listen to content in addition to reading the content and more user tools to use while learning (e.g. electronic note taking, transcripts on screen, etc.).

HCB News: Can you share any insights on the major topics or sessions planned for the upcoming AORN meeting that you're most excited about?
CB: AORN Expo offers educational tracks in leadership, education, staff and personal development, research and evidence-based practice to name a few topics. This year’s Expo has 300 posters for display in Boston.

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