Thank-you for your question. To really answer this question you will have to pose this to different hospitals around what they have done to improve normothermia, and asking OPANA is a great start! The thought around normothermia is...to keep the patients temperature as normal as possible. To ask the question "is there a recommended practice", is a harder one to answer, because of the differences and directions of many different hospitals. The key is patient care and starting with OPANA is the first step of many. Resources found in the "NEW" 6th Ed of the OPANA Standards (found on-line to pruchase through OPANAN's web site) will be of assistance along with the information that has come out of Safer Health Care NOW.

Practice has changed around the care of the patient prior to surgery, during and post. That practice change is "keep the patient warm and minimize heat loss". How you do that becomes an individual hospital practice. Many hospital have and are asking patients to bring socks, housecoats etc. to keep warm prior to surgery. While on the surgical table (especially for the larger surgical procedures like abdominal), care is taken to minimize the amount of exposed skin. Forced air warmers are used - as never before. That is not to say that we didn't used them in the past, we are just more aware and put them into practice sooner.

Presently at this hospital (Hamilton Health Sciences), our patients coming for abdominal surgery bring housecoats, slippers, socks.
Temperatures are taken prior to surgery and are monitored by anesthesia throughout the case. On the surgical table, we minimize the amount of exposed skin (which is difficult). We know that a large amount of heat is lost at the head (similar to infants), so one of the OR nurses came up with the idea of using clear plastic bags at the heads of the table in front of the patients face, but behind the sterile field (no they won't sufficate - they are intubated first). As well, IV fluids are
warmed when administered

Knowing what the patients temperature is prior to surgery, during and post is key. Are temperatures taken in these three areas at your hospital? Research indicates that there is an increase in infection rates related to hypothermia with patients. A catalyst to change is if your hospital has seen an increases in infection rates. Infection control practitioners and or managers/charge nurses may be of resource to help determine if there is an increase. The BIG question is "what can you do"