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A Team Approach to Improving Tissue Management
Author(s) -
Sions Jacqueline A.,
Cheuvront Kimberly A.,
Grove Georgiana L.,
Beach Myra J.,
Bowers Jay W.,
Cendaña Cinthia R.,
Hixson Jesse R.,
Wilson Mary C.
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
aorn journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.222
H-Index - 43
eISSN - 1878-0369
pISSN - 0001-2092
DOI - 10.1016/j.aorn.2016.01.019
Subject(s) - documentation , food and drug administration , quality assurance , patient care , patient safety , medicine , operations management , computer science , medical emergency , health care , nursing , engineering , economics , programming language , economic growth , external quality assessment
Tissue implant management can be labor intensive because of multiple storage locations and cumbersome tracking systems. The purpose of this quality improvement (QI) project was to enhance patient safety and nursing satisfaction by upgrading our tissue‐management facility and processes. We created a centralized storage room for tissue implants and staffed this room during all shifts. Tissue management was executed using tracking software and transportation devices that supported tissue receipt, storage, disposition, documentation, and reporting. Our project resulted in our full compliance with tissue implant requirements from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and The Joint Commission. We also reduced our documentation error rate from 3% to less than 1%, and decreased the tissue‐expiration rate by 1.1%. Tissues are now delivered to ORs, which allows RNs to focus on patient care rather than retrieval of implants. Monitoring of the tissue inventory has improved, resulting in the reduction of tissue wastage.