STERILE PROCESSING - 2022 RESOURCE GUIDE From page 32
values investment in the SPD staff through continuing education is key with good follow-on supervision to alleviate any areas of confusion about best practices in perform- ing the duties of their jobs. A culture of excellence needs to be established by staff leadership so there is an awareness of the importance of doing their job right and how it has a direct impact on patient outcomes,” he emphasized.
Products that increase department capac- ity by reducing the amount of time for work to flow through the department improve workflow in epartments, aquet said. “Products or strategies that reduce staff and instrument movement, eliminate build-up of work in process and eliminate defects will provide the best return on investment. Having meaningful process metrics and the ability to collect process data will support the quality management process and support continuous improve- ment efforts to improve workflow. good quality management system with outlined epectations is what needs to succeed, according to Sarah B. ru, , , resident of and resident of he onnecticut terile rocessing ssociation, hapter of . love a good quality management system. learly outlining expectations and backing them with stan- dard work and evaluations to create the type of workflow and outcome that we need. he biggest challenge in my opinion is developing new leadership as part of a succession plan for leader- ship that is nearing retire- ment, being promoted, and or leaving the field all together. he ability to
Sarah B. Cruz
clearly articulate what’s expected of lead- ership outside of hard skills has room for improvement. here are opportunities for success in finding more effective ways to translate the interpersonal leadership skills necessary in this area, ru said.
Playing clinical catch-up - has put a damper on many things, especially elective surgery. As cases of - are currently waning, hospi- tals are catching up on the surgeries they had to postpone and the demand on Sterile Processing Departments is even more than it already was. he pandemic has created a substantial backlog for surgery and focus is now being re-directed to elective surgical schedules which is creating a higher demand for SPDs to process even more surgical instruments,” mmic’s aquet noted. here is an increased
awareness of the mission of infection con- trol and the role sterile processing plays in the patient safety mission. he focus is now even more directed to the safety of processed instruments since the pandemic. Patient safety is top of mind,” he said. Worker constraints still haunt healthcare facilities. onsidering staffing shortages or to increase throughput, facilities are consid- ering automation to allow for employees to spend time on other tasks. n the world of fleible endoscope reprocessing, there are products that afford employees more hands- off time, such as automated dry leak testers, user-friendly s, drying cabinets and software systems that track assets such as the reprocessing workflow and asset management software platform. High staff turnover is driving the need for devices that help users navigate through processes,” said Melinda enedict, , , , lympus orporation of the mericas.
Melinda Benedict
Another thing that health facilities are catching up on post- is cancer screenings. According to an article pub- lished by Wiley, cancer deaths are expected to increase due to a shortfall of screenings.3 ancer screening rates are still lower than pre-pandemic levels, but the health- care community is trying to counter that issue.4
f their efforts are successful and
people become more comfortable return- ing for non-critical procedures, there may be a return to pre- cancer screen- ing rates or, if there is a ‘catch-up’ effect, possibly higher than pre- rates. s there are staffing shortages in some regions, this may present a challenge for cleaning and sterilization departments, making automation, such as drying cabinets and automated endoscope reprocessors s more important,” Benedict said.
Navigating the space race Another challenge in SPD is making the most of space that those departments already have. Spacing in SPD directly impacts turnover time and with the extra workload, delays are not an option. “As case volumes increase, there will be a need to turn the rooms and equipment faster. f not for faster turns, instrument sets and carts will definitely increase to keep up with case volume. Many SPDs are at capacity now. here is dire need of more storage in existing space,” said Dave Salus, Healthcare arket anager, nteretro.
Dave Salus 38 May 2022 • HEALTHCARE PURCHASING NEWS •
hpnonline.com
he typical response is to move to a track system. While in the end that may be needed, there is a lot of waste that can be found in eisting setups. wo areas we have helped customers are in the individual shelving units, as well as the cart staging
area.Many shelving systems were installed years ago with - shelves. f you look at these systems, you’ll see stacked packs (not recommended for wrapped packs with a lot of unutilized space above. Adjusting these shelves down to fill these voids will create the opportunity for more storage levels to be added,” Salus recommended. he other area is the case cart staging
area, he continued. lot of floor space is dedicated to this temporary storage need, leaving that area totally unusable for stor- age.We have created opportunities to utilize that space for storage, without giving up on the needed staging area. By creating park- ing spots, under our shelving, the vertical space above the case cart can be reclaimed for storage, the physical space freed up can be used for additional storage or added prep stations. hese creative ideas for space utiliation can provide the the space they need to keep up with surgical case volumes,” he said.
Placing endoscope processing under microscope he ssociation for the dvancement of edical nstrumentation recently updated its tandard for leible and emi-igid ndoscope rocessing. his has caused increased interest in topics like endoscope drying, according to enedict, lympus. We’re seeing an uptick in people asking about endoscope drying, air quality to use while drying and other quality assurance measures that are recommended in this standard,” she said. he lympus hanry ndoscope Drying cabinet dries and stores endoscopes and assists customers in meeting the new recommendations for endoscope drying, Benedict told HPN. acilities can supply their own air, or an optional compressor solution can be provided.” ru, , offers another perspective. see a lot of discussion in high-level disinfection and whether or not it would be safer for patients to use single-use disposable scopes. ’d like to see more of the discussion focus on the environmental impact of that single-use scope, and even challenge these compa- nies to begin a recycle program for them. wonder if this discussion could be avoided if more effective scope designs were created with reprocessing in mind, but that would require companies to resubmit ks and completely overhaul the design of their
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