Using a Normothermia Bundle With Perioperative Prewarming to Reduce Patient Hypothermia

To determine if implementing a normothermia bundle, which includes preoperative forced-air warming blankets, reduces incidence of inadvertent perioperative hypothermia (IPH).

Intervention study using retrospective chart review.

Patients received a preoperative forced-air warming blanket and temperature management with the normothermia bundle. Temperature status data was collected from patient charts to evaluate the incidences of IPH and findings from this data analysis was used to measure improvement in perioperative temperature management.

Of 200 patients, 63 (31.5%) remained normothermic, 37 (18.5%) had at least one documented hypothermic temperature, and 100 (50%) had no documented temperature during the intraoperative phase of care. Although compliance with intraoperative temperature monitoring decreased by 13% postintervention, the incidence of documented IPH in reviewed records was decreased by 3.6-fold.

Implementing a normothermia bundle that includes a preoperative forced-air warming blanket may lower the incidences of IPH, especially in surgical cases lasting over 120 minutes.