health: A hands off approach to surgery
Dan Perry, UWO Gazette(U. Western Ontario)

LONDON, Ontario - Surgeons may be putting themselves, their patients and their co-workers at risk by routinely passing surgical instruments, according to a new study by Bernadette Stringer, assistant professor of epidemiology and biostatistics in the University of Western Ontario's faculty of medicine and dentistry.

The study, which was recently published in the British Medical Journal, reveals that dangerous incidents such as glove breakages, cuts and contaminations were reduced by 59 per cent with the adoption of a new technique of implement passing - one where no two hands touch an instrument at the same time.

Stringer worked as an infection control nurse at Vancouver General Hospital for 10 years, she explained.

"[The 'hands-free' study's objectives included] looking at the risk to workers in health care facilities and lowering the risk of occupational infection," Stringer said.

The study mainly concerned the occupational transmission of major blood-borne diseases such as HIV and hepatitis B and C, of which there have been numerous documented cases, she added.

The study was performed in a Seattle hospital, examining over 3,700 surgeries involving significant blood loss, but the results are important to Canadian hospitals as well, Stringer said.

"Many American doctors are Canadian-trained and many Canadians work in the U.S. after graduation without [needing] re-licensing," she added.

Dr. Ken Harris of the London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC), who is currently supporting Stringer's grant application to apply the study to the LHSC, said the application is for funding which would be used to develop an educational tool to teach the hospital's surgical team about the hands-free technique.

The grant Stringer has applied for, if funding is approved, has three phases: screening, developing an educational video and assessing the new technique's usefulness, he said.

Patricia Pocock, director of perioperative services at St. Joseph's Health Care in London, stressed consideration of other problems that may arise. "For example, the hands-free technique may increase the time for patients in surgery, which in turn leads to a longer anaesthesia time," she said.

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