Overheated Patients
Re: "A Warming Trend" (June, page 44). Even though we're aggressively warming our patients intra-op and post-op, we haven't lowered our incidence of post-op hypothermia (below 96.8°F). We monitor our patient's temperature on PACU admit, and we're still noting that about 5 percent of them are hypothermic. As your article states, we're now encouraging and promoting pre-op warming, but many of our patients — especially those who are overweight — are resisting this because they say they feel uncomfortably hot when we place a forced-air warming gown on them in pre-op.

Patrick Price, RN, BSN
OR Manager/Supervisor
Integris-Baptist Regional Health Center
Miami, Okla.
patrick.price@integrisok.com