AORN meeting supports usual array of device, med-surg suppliers despite unusual concerns

Health Industry Today, April, 2001

The Assn. of periOperative Registered Nurses held its 48th Annual AORN Congress in Dallas last month, an event remarkable for the unusual all-in-one-place access afforded to the people who contract for and use the devices and med-surg products on display and equally remarkable for its business-as-usual attitude in the face of unusual concerns.

Nearly 12,000 attendees (down slightly from last year) milled among 560 vendors (down slightly from last year) during five days of meetings and educational sessions. It was the usual agenda for an organization whose first meeting, held in 1954, hosted just 1,700 nurses but now represents approximately 41,000 perioperative registered nurses from around the country.

Last year's AORN meeting in New Orleans was ranked as the largest nursing conference and seventh largest medical trade show in the U.S. by Trade Show Week, a weekly publication for show organizers, exhibitors and suppliers.

But the event's attendance and vendor figures were down slightly from the 1999 show in San Francisco, which in turn were down from the year before, which in turn ...

"We attribute it to the number of mergers and consolidations within the industry," said an AORN representative. "Where before a certain number of people represented individual hospitals, now a number of hospitals can be represented by a single individual."

Still, unspoken but overriding it all is the ongoing and by-now constant concern over the dwindling numbers and advancing age of AORN membership, a fact that also reached into the corporate consciousness of the exhibitors and trade show personnel.

Reduced returns

In a March 1996 survey, the Dept. of Health and Human Services (HHS) estimated 81,590 nurses worked full time in the OR. Today, AORN's employment service-Opportunity--says the overall number of perioperative nurses seeking employment is down 80%, while the number of employers looking for nurses is up proportionally.

AORN says other sources, such as the Pew Commission, conclude the present nursing shortage is situational, i.e. a natural result of mergers and acquisitions in hospitals. Still other organizations, such as Kaiser Permanente, believe the present shortage is related to the increased demand for nurses' services in other areas, such as ambulatory, office-based and home health care.

However, AORN says the average age of its nurses is 44, and shortages are making it impossible to replace ever-increasing numbers of retirees. And, nursing schools have either closed their doors or are relying to an increasing extent on hospitals to do their own advanced training and certification.

A February 1999 study conducted by HHS indicated that the greatest shortage of nurses is in OR, neonatal and ICU. AORN says it has also discovered, through dialogue with its members, that hospitals often report their ORs as being fully staffed, when in fact upwards of 80% of OR nursing personnel are agency nurses who can be counted as employed on a full-time basis by a number of different institutions.

AORN says it has taken steps to address the shortage, including:

* Perioperative Nursing Course 101, developed for facilities to "grow their own" perioperative nurses--AORN also conducts periodic "train the trainer" sessions during which preceptors learn the program and take it back to their facility for implementation

* Working with the National Student Nurses Assn. (NSNA) to introduce students to operating room nursing

* Acting as a contributing sponsor of NSNA's career video, "Nursing: The Ultimate Adventure," targeted to junior and senior high school students

* Increasing media exposure regarding perioperative nursing as a career

* Recruiting perioperative nurses internationally through AORN's employment service, a program said to have been especially successful in Canada.

Taking it to the floor

AORN president Brenda C. Ulmer, RN, told attendees the congress's exhibition floor offered "the best that is available to you and your patients in the way of technological innovation and product information." There'd be little argument from the thousands who milled around the Dallas Convention Center exhibition floor.

"As far as we're concerned, this is the only show," said a Denver hospital chain rep. "It's all right here in front of you."

While devices and med-surg products don't change much on an annual basis, if there was a trend that defined the 2001 AORN show it was the drifting toward minimally invasive and non-invasive wound applications, closure systems and bone grafting.

Ethicon, a Johnson & Johnson company, showed its Dermabond topical skin adhesive that has been on the market for almost a year but is being pushed toward new usage.

"It's moving into the cath lab as a closure utility and being used more in heart surgery and other applications," said an Ethicon rep. "Surgeons like it because it's faster."

Dermabond acts remarkably like a super glue for tissue repair. Ethicon says it offers a secure skin-closure alternative for easily approximated skin edges of surgical incisions, and is now being advertised as appropriate for topical closure of surgical incisions during neurosurgery, such as lumbar laminectomy and cervical laminectomy.