New Bair Paws Gown Brings 'Flex Appeal' to Patient Warming

Seamlessly integrated into the Bair Paws Flex gown are OR patient warming tools: a head drape, adhesive tape to isolate the surgical field, and deployable arm extensions to transition into a Bair Hugger upper body blanket with  tie strips. The gown’s design allows upper or lower body warming for any surgical positioning — supine, prone or lateral.

 “The Bair Paws patient warming system has been exceptionally well received by patients and clinicians alike since its introduction in 2003,” according to Jami Collins, senior product manager. “This new gown conveniently incorporates a highly effective surgical warming device directly into a soft, comfortable hospital gown that does something positive for patients and hospital staff. It’s not just a gown. It’s a patient warming and patient satisfaction tool.”

Before surgery, patients appreciate the gown for its controllable warmth — they simply dial the temperature of the air flowing through the gown to a level that’s right for them. The surgical warming products built into the gown are unknown to the patient because they are deployed only by surgical staff.  In the operating room, clinicians value the ease and convenience of having multiple patient warming options available to them for use during surgery.  After the procedure is over, the upper body blanket arm extensions, head drape and surgical tape strip perforate off, returning the garment to a standard warming gown for post-operative use.

New Bair Paws Flex gown benefits:

• Versatile design can prewarm patients, and then clinically warm the upper body, torso or lower body.
• The upper body insert includes all the features of a Bair Hugger upper body blanket.
• Two separate inserts make it easy to perform either upper body warming or lower body warming.
• Easy pre-induction warming through the gown’s lower comfort/prewarming port.
• Patient-friendly post-operative clinical warming; The Bair Hugger warming unit can be conveniently positioned for use in the lower clinical port.

“While clinical versatility is a key benefit of the Bair Paws Flex gown, so is the practical economic approach of standardizing multiple warming capabilities into one gown that can accommodate most perioperative warming needs,” says Teri Woodwick Sides, vice president of marketing, customer service and R&D. “The ability to quickly and easily warm every surgical patient is particularly  important considering the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ recent adoption of a patient normothermia quality measure for which reporting begins Oct. 1.”

Woodwick Sides says the Bair Paws system also helps improve clinical outcomes and the patient experience in a cost-effective way. “To patients, it may look and feel like a luxury, but the Bair Paws system may save money by supplanting multiple OR warming blankets and the warmed cotton blankets and gowns often used in facilities.”

All anesthetized patients susceptible to hypothermia
Inadvertent perioperative hypothermia is a frequent, yet preventable, complication of surgery and is associated with an increased rate of wound infection (SSIs)¹, increased length of hospital stay² and higher mortality rates.³

Any patient undergoing anesthesia, no matter their age or physical condition, is susceptible to unintended hypothermia because anesthetized patients cannot control their temperature. Anesthesia causes vasodilation, allowing the warmer blood from the body’s core and mix with the blood from the cooler periphery.

The growing importance of prewarming
Prewarming with the Bair Paws system is an effective way of preventing intraoperative hypothermia in surgeries lasting less than one hour, and forced-air warming devices have been established as a highly effective method of preventing and treating heat loss in patients.

The Bair Paws Flex gown travels with a patient from preop, into the operating room (OR) and then to PACU. Conventional hospital gowns can be replaced with a Bair Paws Flex gown, providing patients warmth before surgery and preparing them for clinical warming in the OR.

References

1. Barie, PS. Surgical Site Infections: Epidemiology and Prevention. Surgical Infections. Vol 3, Supplement 2002; S-9 – S-21.

2. Jeran L. American Society of PeriAnesthesia Nurses Development Panel. Clinical Guideline for the Prevention of Unplanned Perioperative Hypothermia. Journal of PeriAnesthesia Nursing. Oct. 2001:Vol 16(5): pp 305-314.

3. Tryba M, Leban J, et al. Does active warming of severely injured trauma patients influence perioperative morbidity? Anesthesiology. 1996: 85: A283.

Source: Arizant Healthcare Inc.