An Isolation Patient Comes to Surgery

In practice

A patient with a wound colonized by MRSA is scheduled for surgery to clean out an infected leg wound. The patient's room upstairs has a contact precautions sign on the door. Before transport, the unit nurse calls the operating room so the team knows in advance, and the wound is covered for the trip. In the operating room, the circulating nurse reviews the facility's policy for isolation patients and plans with the team. Standard precautions apply as always: everyone at the field is already gowned and gloved, and every body fluid is treated as infectious. The contact precautions add to that. Equipment that touches the patient is kept to what is needed, the team avoids carrying items in and out of the room during the case, and unsterile staff wear gowns and gloves when they touch the patient. Hand hygiene follows every glove removal. The scrub person's field work does not change at all, because sterile technique already treats the field as something to protect from every source. At the end, the room and equipment are cleaned and disinfected according to the facility's policy for contact-precaution cases before the next patient comes in.