At One Degree Medical, we believe you should not have to worry about whether or not your patients are cold. Inadvertent patient hypothermia could be costing you millions and have negative impacts on your patient outcomes. Learn more about what you may not know about hypothermia and how you can help prevent inadvertent patient hypothermia.
20% of Your Patients May Experience Inadvertent Hypothermia.1
The average cost of a hypothermic event is between $2,500 and $7,000.2
If even 300 patients throughout the year have a 1°C drop in core temperature, you could be losing $2 Million to increased costs. Those cost include:
- Increased recovery time in the Post-Anesthesia Recovery Unit (PACU)3
- Blood transfusions from increased blood loss2
- Surgical Site Infections2
- Increased length of stay4
This doesn’t include the increase risk of mortality that carries not only a human cost, but potentially towering legal costs.
Learn ways you can avoid unnecessary OR downtime and avoid inefficient practices that may be costing you money
Cold Patients Are 3x More Likely To Develop Surgical Site Infections4
A single surgical site infection (SSI) is not only a terrible event for your patient to undergo, it is draining your hospital of profits. Treating patients who develop surgical site infections cost significantly more than patients without SSIs.5
A patient with a surgical site infection may:
Spend More Time in the Hospital5
Experience Pain
Incur Potentially High Medical Bills
Face an Increased Risk of Mortality6
Treating patients who develop surgical site infections cost significantly more than patients without SSIs. These costs have a direct negative impact on hospital profits.5
Down Time Costs You Money
Each minute your operating room is not utilized costs money.7 A major contributing factor to delays could be setup time. With so many items that need to be ready prior to a procedure, it is not uncommon to get behind schedule, potentially costing you thousands of dollars a day.
By utilizing One Degree Medical’s active irrigation fluid warming system, you may be able to avoid unnecessary OR downtime and avoid inefficient practices that may be costing you money.
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References
A. Kurz Physiology of thermoregulation. Best Pract Res Clin Anaesthesiol. 2008; 22(4):627-644.
C.B. Mahoney, J. Odom. Maintaining intraoperative normothermia: a meta-analysis of outcomes with costs. AANA J. 1999; 67(2):155-63.
R. Lenhardt, E. Marker, V. Goll, H. Tschernich, et al. Mild intraoperative hypothermia prolongs postanesthetic recovery. Anesthesiology 1997; 87(6):1318-23.
A. Kurz, D.I. Sessler, R. Lenhardt. Perioperative normothermia to reduce the incidence of surgical-wound infection and shorten hospitalization. Study of Wound Infection and Temperature Group. N Engl J Med 1996; 334(19):1209-15.
J. Shepard, W. Ward, A. Milstone, et al. Financial Impact of Surgical Site Infections on Hospitals: The Hospital Management Perspective. Jama Surgery 2013; 148(10):907-914.
S.S. Awad. Adherence to surgical care improvement project measures and postoperative surgical site infections. Surgical Infection 2012; 13(4):234-7.
J.A. Girotto, P.F. Koltz, G. Drugaset. Optimizing your operating room: Or, why large, traditional hospitals don’t work. International Journal of Surgery 2010; 8(5):359-367.