The Oak October 2025
Welcome to the October issue of The Oak.
ACORN is pleased to announce that three more draft standards are open for public consultation – Cleaning and maintaining the perioperative environment (consultation period ends on 26 October), Electrosurgical safety (consultation period ends on 4 November) and Sharps and preventing sharps-related injury (consultation period ends on 9 November).
Thank you to everyone who submitted an abstract for the ACORN 2026 Conference. The call for abstracts is now closed, and authors will be notified at the end of this month of the outcome of their submission.
ACORN’s journal, Journal of Perioperative Nursing, is again running the Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition for higher degree students undertaking perioperative nursing research. The winner will receive complimentary full registration to the ACORN 2026 Conference. Entries close on Friday 10 October 2025.
ACORN sends sincere condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of Lesley Stewart. Lesley was ACORN director from 2014–2018 and made an outstanding contribution to perioperative nursing. Throughout her long career, Lesley worked in many areas of nursing, not just perioperative, and her legacy lives on through the many nurses she guided and inspired.
President
Have your say
ACORN is pleased to announce three more draft standards are open for public comment. These draft documents are part of our commitment to developing high-quality, evidence-based guidance that supports safe and effective perioperative practice across Australia.
- Cleaning and maintaining the perioperative environment: Consultation period ends on 26 October.
- Electrosurgical safety: Consultation period ends on 4 November
- Sharps and preventing sharps-related injury: Consultation period ends on 9 November.
We invite all perioperative professionals, stakeholders, and interested contributors to review the drafts and share feedback. Your insights are vital to ensuring this standard is practical, relevant and reflective of the real-world experiences of our perioperative community.
Why your feedback matters
The public comment process plays a key role in shaping ACORN standards, ensuring that they are:
- clinically sound and informed by evidence
- practical and implementable across diverse settings
- aligned with the experiences of frontline perioperative professionals.
We ask that you download the draft document from the ACORN website, then submit your comments through the provided survey link. Please avoid using track changes or adding feedback directly within the documents, as this hinders the review process.
By contributing your voice, you are helping build safer, stronger perioperative environments across Australia. Whether you're a nurse, an educator, a student, medical company representative or manager your input is essential.
Additional draft standards will be released throughout the year for consultation. Make sure you’re subscribed to ACORN updates on social media and The Oak newsletter, so you never miss a chance to contribute.
Thank you for being part of this collaborative process!
Developing an objective framework for scrub nurse training: A Japanese pilot study
Keita Ishido, Minami Tsukada, Rina Tazawa, Saseem Poudel, Akitaka Motoyoshi, Zen Naito, Satoshi Hirano
Research
Patients who underwent robotic-assisted surgery used less opioid pain medicine and were discharged earlier compared to individuals who underwent manual surgery, according to a study in the Journal of Robotic Surgery. The study analysed 452 total knee arthroplasty procedures performed at a critical access hospital in the US. Of the surgeries studied, 215 patients received surgery with Johnson & Johnson’s Velys™ robotic-assisted knee system and 237 received manual knee surgery from a single surgeon. Individuals who elected to have robotic-assisted surgery used about 50 per cent less opioid pain medicine and were discharged nearly ten hours earlier. Manual knee replacement surgeries were associated with 2.3 higher times morphine milligram equivalent consumption and 1.8 times longer length of stay compared to Velys™ robotic-assisted surgeries.
Body mass index and postsurgical outcomes in older adults
In this observational cohort study of older adults undergoing major elective surgery, being overweight was associated with lower odds of 30-day all-cause mortality. These findings suggest that traditional weight loss recommendations based on achieving normal BMI may need to be reevaluated for this population.
In this cohort study, patients who received robot-assisted abdominal surgery (RAS) had a higher incidence of postoperative pulmonary complications (PPCs) and received longer and more intense mechanical ventilation than patients who received conventional laparoscopic surgery (CLS); however, only the duration of ventilation rather than intensity of ventilation or type of surgical approach (i.e. RAS vs CLS) was independently associated with the occurrence of PPCs, indicating that the longer duration of ventilation in RAS underlies the higher incidence of PPCs observed in those who undergo this type of surgery.
Articles
This whitepaper examines steam sterilisation – the predominant method in health care – and the critical role of chemical indicators (CIs) in monitoring process efficacy. With a focus on ISO 11140-1 standards, it compares Type 4 and Type 5 indicators, outlining their strengths, limitations and implications for reliable sterilisation practices.
Documents of note
Healthcare sustainability and resilience module
The Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care (ACSQHC) has released a new Healthcare sustainability and resilience module to support health services in delivering high-quality care while reducing environmental impacts and managing climate risks. This new module provides a framework of actions that supports health service organisations to integrate environmental sustainability and climate resilience strategies into their approach to safety and quality improvement.
Pragmatic AI guidance for clinicians
The ACSQHC’s new ‘Pragmatic AI guidance for clinicians’ outlines how to safely and responsibly use artificial intelligence (AI) technologies when providing care.
Education resources
Healthcare Linen & Textiles Series
The Textile Rental services Association (TRSA) three-part webinar series brings infection preventionists, administrators and clinicians the latest best practices – from eliminating the risks of home laundering to ensuring hygienically clean certifications. Now free to access, these sessions offer actionable strategies to strengthen infection control across every facility.
Innovations and initiatives
FDA greenlights trial for pig kidney transplant
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a clinical trial testing genetically engineered pig kidneys. The trial will evaluate the safety, tolerability and efficacy of EGEN-2784, a genetically engineered pig kidney, after 24 weeks post-procedure. Study participants will be patients who have end stage kidney disease, are 50 or older, are dependent on dialysis and are on the kidney transplant waitlist. The trial currently includes three patients. The first patient, a 67-year-old man, has surpassed seven months after the transplant, making him the world’s longest-living recipient of a genetically engineered pig kidney. He continues to live dialysis-free, according to the release.
Advocacy
Surgical smoke legislation enacted in Delaware (USA)
On 25 August 2025, Delaware Governor Matt Meyer signed HB 173-1 into law, making Delaware the 20th US state to enact surgical smoke evacuation legislation. The new law goes into effect on 1 April 2026.
ACORN Queensland Conference
11–12 October 2025, QT Gold Coast
1 November 2025, Novotel Langley Perth
ACORN 2026 Conference
14–16 May 2026, Brisbane Convention Centre
Papua New Guinea Perioperative Nurses Society (PNGPNS) Conference