MY OPERATING ROOM NURSE COACH Erasmus Project

Project Title

MY OPERATING ROOM NURSE COACH

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Health and wellbeing; Cooperation between educational institutions and business; Open and distance learning

Project Summary

EUROPEAN OPERATING ROOM NURSES* ARE LACKING TRAINING AND ARE FACING PATIENT SAFETY ISSUES

An operating room (OR) nurse works in a very special environment which is the operating theater. To simplify, she has two major functions as circulating nurse and scrub nurse. As a circulating nurse, she takes care of the patient and of everything in the OR. She is the link between the sterile team and coordinates the smooth running of the surgical program. As a scrub nurse, she assists the surgeon in the sterile area throughout the surgical procedure. Dressed in a sterile gown, she receives the sterile instrument trays, counts the instruments, arranges them on her table, etc.. She stands by the surgeon throughout the surgical procedure, which can last from 20 minutes to several hours. In order to do so, she hands to the surgeon the instruments or medical devices of all kinds needed. A good scrub nurse must anticipate the needs of the surgeon and understand what he is doing and must anticipate which instrument or medical device she will have to provide. The scrub nurse may also assist the surgeon during certain stages of the procedure.
However, in most European countries, there is no compulsory training for OR nurses. If specialised training courses exists, it is not mandatory for a nurse to follow them before working in the OR !
At the same time, patients are getting older, staff turnover is increasing, medical and technical innovations are becoming more and more advanced and frequent, the operating theatre environment is becoming more and more multicultural with more and more interim staff… Outpatient surgery requires fluid, fast and safe reactions. The tension among the OR staff is obvious. Integrating new nurses without training is a major challenge whereby patient safety issues are disregarded.
In response to this existing situation, at the European level, the profession has set up two previous projects : KSM (Key Skill Management) and KSMOR (KSM in Operating Room).
These two projects focus primarily on the CIRCULATING NURSE function. They provide OR managers with tools to manage the quality and practices of their teams thanks to an application that has been tested in about twenty establishments in Europe. The current project aims to complete and extend it also to the function of SCRUB NURSE.

THE ANSWER: A MULTI-LANGUAGE TEACHING PLATFORM WITH VIDEOS ON THE PROFESSION OF CIRCULATING and SCRUB NURSE.
The aim of the project is to provide a platform that allows any OR nurse to acquire the necessary practices to instrument and circulate in the OR environment. Teaching paths differentiated by surgical specialty and by instrument type, self-evaluation, versatility table, individual profiles, are all means that the OR manager or nurse can access to on the platform.

PROFESSIONAL PARTNERS INVOLVED ON A DAILY BASIS IN THE FUNCTIONING OF OPERATING THEATRES
The coordinator of the project is a Belgian university college (Haute Ecole Vinci). Do also take part in the project : three universities training nurses (Fin, SW, CSR); a national association of OR nurses (GR) whose President is the Vice President of EORNA (European Operating Room Nurses Association); the designer of the KSM method (FR) and a technical partner for the videos (BE). Three professional groups representing the profession participate as associated partners: EORNA (Europe), AFISO (Belgium), UNAIBODE (France).

A CAREFULLY PREPARED PROJECT BY OR NURSES FOR OR NURSES
The project was organized in the form of a network of processes, each led by a pilot and a co-pilot. All the activities were planned taking into account the improvement loops for each of the videos. The list of practices resulted from several months of preparatory work in order to have, from the start of the project, a non-exhaustive list of videos representing the essential function of the OR nurse.

SCENARIOS DESIGNED BY OPERATING THEATRE PROFESSIONALS, PUT INTO IMAGES AND TESTED BY THE PROFESSION.
All the videos are based on scenarios designed and validated by operating room staff with the advice of surgeons.
Each scenario gives life to practices and gestures to which are added comments and realistic image processing.

A UNIQUE EDUCATIONAL TOOL
– TO SOOTHE AND FACILITATE THE INTEGRATION OF NEWCOMERS IN THE OR
– TO MAKE THE SURGEONS AND NURSES WORK SAFER
– TO IMPROVE PATIENT SAFETY.

ANY OPERATING THEATRE IN THE WORLD CAN USE THE VIDEO CORPUS AND APPROPRIATE THE PLATFORM.

* The term nurse is used in feminine gender for ease of spelling. While women represent 90-95% of the profession, nonetheless the profession remains open to men.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 432562 Eur

Project Coordinator

Haute Ecole Léonard de Vinci & Country: BE

Project Partners

• UNIVERZITA PARDUBICE
• Syllogos Diplomatouxon Nosileuton Xeirourgiou
• Pasteau David Jacques
• REGION STOCKHOLM
• Simon Dujardin
• JYVASKYLAN AMMATTIKORKEAKOULU