If medical association meetings reflect the spirit of their members, the OR nurses meeting held last week was a bustling and meticulously planned event.

The 56th annual Congress of the Association of periOperative Registered Nurses (AORN), was held Mar 17-19 at McCormick Convention Center in Chicago. It featured non-stop educational and certification programs, a 5K run to benefit the AORN foundation, and the largest surgical trade show in the country.

"AORN offers many opportunities for the professional development of nurses and staff," said Michelle Marks, AORN's director of marketing. The conference aims for a combination of leadership, education, and support for various specialties "for the betterment of the individual's profession as well as their person."
The AORN Congress is an essential resource for the estimated 160,000 perioperative registered nurses in the country, she said.

Informatics Focus

This year's conference was focused on informatics and operating room automation, as well as improved education and credentialing. It was also the first AORN conference since the implementation of the CMS "never event" policy of non-reimbursement for selected preventable errors. The AORN meeting included several sessions dedicated to heightened patient safety and precautions taken in and out of the sterile field.

The number of Congress attendees this year was lower than last, by about 700 members, which Marks attributed to a difficult economy. This reflects a narrowing trend in staffing within the OR and even some surgical procedures. Less capital spells budget cuts, which force fewer nurses to manage an increasingly complex and interdisciplinary environment. Elective surgeries are being "held-off," especially plastic surgery, but the trend is also mirrored in other elective procedures, including cardiac procedures, said Marks. This is leading to thinner caseloads for nursing staff.

"Individuals are not taking the time off to have these procedures done in fear that they might come back and not have a job," Marks commented.

Patient safety is not a new concern, but hospitals and ambulatory surgical centers are now having to cover the cost of preventable errors that CMS has declared "never events," which occur due to hospital or ambulatory center error, including retained foreign objects following a surgical procedure (sponges and instruments), trauma by fall or other accident, blood type errors, and hospital-acquired pressure ulcers and infection. Exclusion and non-payment of such events took effect October 1, 2008.

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