St. Francis uses latest technology to comfort surgery patients

The old cotton patient gowns and warmed cotton blankets are history in St. Francis’ Procedural Services Department. Surgery patients can now control their warmth while wearing the Bair Paws patient adjustable warming system. The Bair Paws system combines forced-air warming and patient gowning in one step. Each patient is given his or her own, single-use-warming gown. The system uses a warming unit that delivers warmed air through a hose to perforations in the specially designed warming gown.

The Bair Paws warming gowns, made from a soft, disposable material, have had a positive response. “Not only does this product make our surgical patients more comfortable, it also decreases the workload of our staff caring for these patients because they’re not constantly replacing the warm blankets,” said LuJean Iversen, Manager, Procedural Services. “And it’s just really nice that the patient can control his or her own temperature to wherever it’s most comfortable.”

The Bair Paws system is specially designed to replace traditional patient gowns and the need for warmed cotton blankets for patients that are waiting for, or recovering from, surgery. While waiting for surgery, patients can adjust the air temperature delivered to the warming gown to a comfortable level using a hand held temperature controller. For surgery, the system is simply disconnected and the warming gown is treated as a traditional patient gown during the procedure. After surgery, the attending nurse can reconnect a Bair Paws warming unit to the warming gown and set the temperature to help comfort patients while they recover from anesthesia.