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Our Sustainability and Clinical Board teams are collaborating on a unique study called Project DRAPES (Drapes in Routine Aseptic Procedures for Environmental Sustainability).
This project was the idea of Nicole Dyer MRCVS (Veterinary Sustainability Lead) and the Head of Environmental, Social and Governance, Hannah James, who wanted to know whether using disposable drapes in routine surgeries gives different patient outcomes compared with using washable, reusable drapes, which have less lifetime environmental impact.
As well as approval from the RCVS Ethical Review Panel, this project has won part-funding from the BSAVA PetSavers fund.
Neuter patients (dog spays and castrates, as well as cat spays) are randomly assigned reusable or disposable drapes, and we have further practices joining the study over the coming months. To date we have over 3,000 patients enrolled in this study!
At the end of the project, we hope to be able to say whether drape choice affects wound complications. If reusable textile drapes perform the same as, or better than, single-use ones, practice teams who would prefer to use reusable drapes for their better environmental impact can feel confident that this provides just as good a standard of patient care.
The protocol is available here:
At VetPartners we are fortunate to have an engaging and approachable Clinical Board Support Team (CBST) with both clinical and extensive research experience. To learn more about the work of the CBST and how they empower our teams to undertake clinical quality improvement and research, click here.
To find out more about the work we do visit VetPartners Learning or email us at clinical.board@vetpartnersgroup.com
