2022 AORN Conference Presentations Focus on Pressure Site Injuries, Surgical Site Infections

Pressure site injuries and surgical site infections were key topics at the recent AORN Global Surgical Conference and Expo in New Orleans, Louisiana. Infection Control Today® spoke with one of the presenters on these topics and more, Susan “Suzy” Scott, MSN, RN, WOC Nurse. Scott has been a nurse for over 43 years and is currently the Quality Improvement/Patient Safety Educator with the University of Tennessee, College of Medicine, Office of Graduate Medical Education in Memphis, TN. She is the CEO and independent consultant for Scott Triggers PLLC. A notable International operating room (OR) pressure injury key opinion leader, researcher, and author from the Veterans Health Administration with 35 years of federal service, she developed the Scott Triggers® concurrent trigger system to identify at risk individuals for PI in the OR. Scott was recognized by the American Academy of Nurses as an “Edge Runner” for her Perioperative Pressure Injury Prevention Program.

Scott says that the overarching theme to her career is patient safety; therefore, one of her favorite aspects of the 2022 AORN conference was “getting to see people I haven't seen in three years, learning new things, seeing the innovation,” Scott told ICT®. “[It was great] looking at the new devices, new technology, things that have really grown over the last year or so to address those clinical problems that are nagging that we haven't really paid a lot of attention to. And I love seeing new innovation so that we can implement patient safety in our settings.”

Discussing her future goals, Scott mentions to ICT®, "I want to shine a light on how to improve the incident tracking, do real time root cause analysis, "four eyes" assessment in the post-operative period, integrate risk assessment into artificial intelligence, electronic medical records to make things easier for nurses to do documentation, and be compliant with our best guidelines,” Scott says. “I think there's a lot of work to be done. I'm proud of the progress we've made…but…I'll keep pushing it on.”