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12 INFECTION CONTROL & PATIENT SAFETY 20 hospitals win AORN's Go Clear Gold Award for eliminating surgical smoke By Harrison Cook T he Association of Perioperative Registered Nurses announced its 2018 AORN Go Clear Gold Award recipients. AORN partnered with Medtronic to create the award, which is given to hospitals that successfully complete AORN's Surgical Smoke-Free Recognition Program. e program seeks to ensure a smoke-free environment for the hospital perioperative team and patients. e 20 hospital recipients recognized with the AORN Go Clear Gold Award in alphabetical order: 1. Aurora Lakeland Medical Center (Elhhorn, Wis.) 2. Aurora Health Care, Southern Lakes (Burlington, Wis.) 3. Centennial Hills Hospital (Las Vegas) 4. CHI-Franciscan Perioperative Services (Lakewood, Wash.) 5. Dosh Memorial Hospital (Southport, N.C.) 6. Glen Cove (N.Y.) Hospital Northwell Health 7. Glendive (Mont.) Medical Center 8. Henderson (Nev.) Hospital Procedural Services 9. Henry Ford Wyandotte (Mich.) Hospital 10. Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson (Anchorage, Alaska) 11. NYU Langone Health (New York City) 12. Oregon Health & Sciences University North Operating Room (Portland) 13. OSF HealthCare Saint Paul Medical Center (Mendota, Ill.) 14. Select Specialty Hospital (Pensacola, Fla.) 15. Southern New Hampshire Medical Center (Nashua) 16. St. Claire HealthCare (Morehead, Ky.) 17. e Emory Clinics: ASC (Atlanta) 18. e Outpatient Surgery Center at University of Virginia (Charlottesville) 19. UPMC Horizon (Farrell, Pa.) 20. VA North Las Vegas Medical Center n Why this family heirloom could reveal how 1918 flu pandemic spread By Mackenzie Bean H uman tissue slides passed down to descendants of a British military physician and shared with researchers could help unearth new information about the 1918 Spanish flu, reported STAT. The hunt for the samples started after Michael Worobey, PhD, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Tuc- son-based University of Arizona, discovered a report written by World War I British military physician and pathologist Wil- liam Rolland in 1917 — a year before the Spanish flu outbreak occurred. The report detailed a fatal respiratory illness that was infecting soldiers. Dr. Worobey used the internet to hunt down Dr. Rolland's descendants and see if any tissue samples existed from the physician's century-old research. This search led him to Dr. Jim Cox, a retired family medicine physician in England who is married to Dr. Rolland's granddaughter. Dr. Cox had an entire collection of human tissue slides he was willing to lend Dr. Worobey. "I almost fell out of my chair, for real," Dr. Worobey told STAT. "I actually did cry real tears." Dr. Worobey has a theory the pandemic flu was infecting people before the 1918 outbreak. In a quest for answers about the pandemic's origin and how it spread, Dr. Wo- robey and his team will take partial specimens from the tissue slides for analysis. "It would be really interesting to me if this horrible virus was really circulating under the radar for so long before the fall of 1918 when it really had its peak effects," he told STAT. "It would tell us that there's a whole lot we have to learn about the forces that keep pandemic viruses simmering at a low level before they explode." n "We have to learn about the forces that keep pandemic viruses simmering before they explode." —Michael Worobey, PhD, Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona