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AORN provides ongoing education about surgical smoke, including the AORN Go Clear program. “This is a comprehensive approach to protecting patient and worker safety by promoting a smoke-free environment wherever surgical smoke is generated,” says Pennock. 

Many hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) today look more like construction zones than health care facilities as they build new perioperative suites and renovate existing suites to keep up with patient demand and new technology requirements. “Renovating and building perioperative suites has become one of the fastest growing skill sets for health care leaders,” says Aimee Watson, MS, CMRP, a senior manager in healthcare at St. Onge, an independent engineering firm that provides design, logistics and supply chain consulting to hospitals and ASCs. “But we never received a class on this in school.”

Despite recent progress in equity hiring, representation of Black and Indigenous People of Color (BIPOC) nurses still lags in the health care industry. This is especially true in the operating room.

Yoder believes that the key to successful huddling is making sure that there’s value for everyone involved. “If the staff doesn’t think huddling is valuable, they won’t attend,” she says. “Or even worse, they’ll make it a negative experience for everyone else.”