AORN's guideline on sterile technique reiterates the fundamentals that protect the surgical patient: establishing and maintaining the sterile field, correct gowning and gloving, careful handling of sterile items, and minimizing movement and door openings that disrupt airflow and raise contamination risk.
The guideline frames surgical site infection prevention as a team behavior, not a single step. Maintaining a wide margin around the sterile field, monitoring for and acting on breaks in technique, and limiting OR traffic each reduce the bioburden the patient is exposed to during a procedure.
Why this matters on shift
Surgical site infections add morbidity, cost, and length of stay. The circulating and scrub nurses control many of the moment-to-moment behaviors — calling out breaks, limiting traffic, guarding the field — that determine whether sterility holds for the whole case.