Who needs a jewelry
Introduction
The purpose
waiver?
of the jewelry
waiver is to inform the patient of the
purpose of removing jewelry while
protecting the facility from a lawsuit.
And preventing he said she said
situations from occurring. The waiver is
concrete evidence that the patients are
properly informed and able to still make
the decision to keep the jewelry on or
piercing in place.
Project Goals
1. Implement a new jewelry waiver
2. Have the jewelry waiver in
circulation in the Surgical Pre-
operative holding area.
3. Have an electronic jewelry waiver
on the charting system for
physicians to access.
4. Have the waiver used as a
national template for the VA system
to access as needed.
Project Description
After researching the latest
literature and suggestions
through AORN, the Dermatology
Journal, and the manufacturers
recommendation on jewelry and
piercings with the electrocautery
units a waiver was made with the
most up to date suggestions and
alternatives for the patient to
read and sign that they
understand the purpose and risks
of keeping piercings in place and
jewelry on.
Evaluation Strategy
In order to evaluate the success
of implementing a jewelry waiver
into a
system several evaluations were
done these included
1. Staff evals and input on
what should be on the
waiver
2. Patient evals on
effectiveness and
understanding of jewelry
waiver
3. Staff evaluations on ease of
use.
All evaluations came back
successful 100% from staff and
99% from patients.
Conclusions and Implications
After testing the jewelry/piercing
waiver into practice 49 out of 50
patients chose to have their
jewelry taken off or piercings
removed. The hospital staff was
able to accommodate some
alternatives to keeping the
piercings open.
This allowed for staff and
patients to realize patients never
really understood the importance
of having their jewelry removed;
they just felt like they had to with
no explanation of WHY it was
important.
 Who needs a jewelry
waiver?

Acknowledgements
Delassie, J., Varada, S., Au, S., Pope, A., Manders,
E., & Ramierez-Fort, M. K. (2014, January
10). Peri-Operative management of the
patient with body piercings [Supplemental
Material for Magazine]. SciMedCentral.
Retrieved from
https://www.jscimedcentral.com/Dermatol
ogy/dermatology-2-1009.pdf
Smith, F. D. (2016, June 2016). Caring for surgical
patients with piercings [Supplemental
magazine material]. AORN Journal,
103(6), 583-596.
http://dx.doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.1016
/j.aorn.2016.04.005