Reducing Perioperative Hypothermia while lowering costs
Hospitals and healthcare providers today face growing pressure to deliver improved patient outcomes while cutting operational costs—a balance that’s especially difficult in surgical settings, where effective patient warming is essential to preventing perioperative hypothermia and its costly complications.
Overlooked contributors
One frequently overlooked contributor to both complications and costs is unintentional perioperative hypothermia, a drop in body temperature during or after surgery. It’s more common than many think, and can have some serious consequences:
· Higher risk of surgical site infections
· Longer recovery times
· Greater chance of readmission
Each of these outcomes not only threatens patient safety but also adds significant financial strain on hospitals because it leads to:
· Increased spend on treatment
· Longer hospital stays and additional resources
· Less hospital beds available for new patients
Traditional Solutions
Trusted active warming solutions like Forced Air Warming and conductive fabric-based systems are commonly used intraoperatively and there’s no doubt that they reduce complication rates and improve recovery times, translating into real cost savings. But even trusted solutions like FAW have their drawbacks:
· Impractical for pre-warming patients on the ward / in transit to the anaesthetic room (advised by NICE as pre-warming can reduce SSI risk by 40%)
· Bulky and space-consuming, limiting workflow efficiency in theatres
· Require blowers that are expensive to purchase /energy intensive
· Require training and setup, increasing staff burden
The uncomfortable working environment FAW creates for clinicians aside, all of these factors affect ROI, especially in high-volume surgical environments where operational inefficiencies (like having to get a patient up to a safe temperature pre anaesthetisation) delay surgeries and significantly increase costs.
What’s the alternative?
On the ward:
Pre-warming patients is easy with simple solutions that work – THERMARMOUR blankets work by reflecting the patients’ body heat and capturing it in the insulative fleece layer. Unlike active heat alternatives, they work from the moment they are applied. As they require no additional equipment to work, they can be applied on the ward, prior to anaesthetisation, and can stay with the patient in transit to theatres to get ahead of the inevitable temperature drop during anaesthetisation, reducing delays associated with re-warming.
In theatres:
Whilst it’s important to note that for longer operations, active heating like FAW may be the appropriate solution, for shorter surgeries, THERMARMOUR Passive Warming blankets offer a simpler, efficient alternative: by capturing the patient’s body heat prior to anaesthetisation, THERMARMOUR delivers a high level of clinical effectiveness, without electricity or airflow.
Here’s how we deliver unmatched ROI:
Fewer Complications
THERMARMOUR helps prevent hypothermia-related complications that can cost hospitals thousands per patient. Maintaining normothermia before, during and after surgery reduces:
· Delays associated with re-warming patients pre anaesthetisation
· Wound recovery time post surgery
· Surgical site infection rates
· Readmission risk
Fewer complications = Lower costs
With fewer complications and faster recovery, hospitals can benefit from:
· Reduced spend on treatment for SSIs
· Less staff time per patient
· More beds available for patients, reducing waitlists
Operational efficiencies = High ROI
THERMARMOUR blankets are:
· Easy to implement
· Space-saving and electricity-free
· Cost-effective patient specific solution
Whilst clinicians should always use the appropriate solution for patients given the context and specific vulnerabilities, for pre-warming, THERMARMOUR is a simple solution that can be applied to all patients to reduce the risk of SSIs and the associated costs. For many surgeries also, THERMARMOUR can offer comparable clinical outcomes, with the added benefit of being more sustainable and cost effective.
To learn more, get in touch with the team at [email protected]
Our clinical evidence
You can read clinical evidence reports demonstrating THERMARMOUR’s effectiveness in temperature management in various settings:
Environmental Ergonomics Research Centre Loughborough University
Measurement of heat resistance of THERMARMOUR vs traditional blanket
Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust
Report on post-operative warming (2019)
Robert Jones & Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Trust
Temperature management in major spine surgery
The Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust
Managing perioperative normothermia in post anaesthetic care
The Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital
An evaluation of Thermarmour warming blanket for temperature management in hip replacement
Categories: Medical
Tags: hypothermia, hypothermia blanket, hypothermia in surgery, hypothermia prevention, medical, medical blanket, patient warming, perioperative hypothermia, surgery
