Blanket warming cabinets help to provide better patient care on many levels. They provide a safer and easier method to reduce the physical and psychological stresses of surgery through the use of warm blankets.
Physical Benefits of Blanket Warmers
Pre-warming the patient is vitally important before entering surgery. Mayo Clinic staff reports that general anesthesia can cause shivering and potential body temperature levels to drop, making a warm blanket essential to patients for any type of procedure requiring anesthesia to prevent hypothermia. Sometimes the body temperature decreases more during surgery. A warm blanket can remain on the patient and maintain a warmer body temperature throughout surgery.
If this temperature drop is not maintained, it can lead to post-surgical complications such as perioperative hypothermia, prolonged hospitalization and recovery, and an increase in the risk for infection. Hypothermia is very preventable; yet, it is one of the most common complications from surgery. Beyond warming blankets to prevent hypothermia, our Future Health Concepts (FHC) blanket warmers are also good for preventing hypothermia by warming solutions such as IV fluid, and blood transfusion.
Psychological Benefits of Blanket Warmers
By pre-warming blankets for your patients, you are benefiting them psychologically as well when prepping them for surgery. Surgery can be a stressful and intimidating experience, causing physical reactions in the patient, such as shivering. A warm blanket reduces the patient’s shivering and replaces it with a larger sense of comfort and protection.
Along with the physical feeling of calm, it is also reassuring to the patient that the nurses and doctors genuinely care about their well-being. As the nurse takes out a soothing, warm blanket from the commercial blanket warmer and places it on the patient, he or she is reassured of the nurse’s genuine concern.
Does Your Facility Need a Blanket Warming Cabinet?
When choosing the right warming cabinet for your facility, you’ll need to take a few factors into consideration; such as your volume of patients, the available space in your facility, and how quickly you’ll need your blanket or fluids warmed.
You can read more about those factors in our article: How to Choose the Right Blanket Warmer for Your Facility
Once you know those factors you can begin to decide which size blanket warmer or fluid warmer you’ll need. Here is our handy chart to help you determine how much storage our different models of blanket warmers provide, so you can accurately match your needs.
Compact Warming
Cabinets
Future Health Concepts (FHC) offers more compact warming cabinets for facilities that don’t require a large volume of warmed blankets or fluids. The FHCSWC1518-G Blanket / Fluid Warmer holds one or two blankets or a limited amount of fluid.
It is also suitable for a countertop, which is perfect for facilities that are limited in space.
Large Blanket Warmers
On the other side of the spectrum, FHC provides the FHCDWC2424-G Blanket / Fluid Warmer, which holds 35-50 blankets depending on the thickness of the blanket, positioning and fold.
This model features three adjustable shelves and is suitable as a standalone or mobile dual blanket warmer. If your facility requires many warmed blankets or fluids throughout the day, this model might meet your needs.
FHC offers a full line of top quality customizable single, double or triple warming cabinets with a variety of features and options you can’t beat! Some of our options include Touch Screen Control, Built-in Ethernet, Temperature recorder, and solution baskets. Manufactured of the highest quality all of our warming cabinets undergo stringent testing procedures to assure a long life and accurate temperature settings.
Future Health Concepts understands how vital this equipment is for your hospital or surgery center and guarantees our product with a one-year labor and five-year parts warranty.
Check them out on our blanket warming cabinet webpage, or give us a call at 888-282-8644 and see if we meet your specifications.