Outpatient Surgery Magazine

COVID-19 Crisis - April 2020 - Subscribe to Outpatient Surgery Magazine

Outpatient Surgery Magazine, providing current information on Surgical Services, Surgical Facility Administration, Outpatient Surgery News and Trends, OR Excellence and more.

Issue link: http://outpatientsurgery.uberflip.com/i/1234902

Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 77 of 114

when they arrive in the OR to link them to the patient and case, and to close the loop on trays not being scanned in central sterile. • Making change happen. After ensuring staff were properly trained on how to use the system, I conducted daily audits for two months to make sure sets and carts were properly scanned in sterile processing and the ORs. Staff were aware I'd be around to check on their performance, and answer questions and concerns they had. I also presented updated compli- ance data at weekly staff meetings to show the team areas in which they needed to improve and when their efforts began to gain traction. Conducting in-person audits and providing staff with updates about their performances are essential when implementing new practices. Constant communication and shared data keep staff informed about what improvements still need to be made and when their efforts were beginning to get better. At the end of our intervention, scanning compliance improved to more than 80%. I stopped collecting data for six months, but decided to again audit our staff's performance to see if the process improvements had been hardwired into their normal work routines. The percentage of scanned trays was about the same. Several months after I implemented the inter- vention, staff's performance was where it needed to be. Making change happen is hard work and takes some time to implement new practices. OSM 7 8 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E • A P R I L 2 0 2 0 in the other department. The instrument scanning technology lets us pinpoint the locations of specific trays and ensures instruments that belong in our inventory are returned. We've found that fewer instruments go missing, so we've spent less money on purchasing replacement items. — Jon Kraft, BSN, RN, CNOR Mr. Kraft (jonathan.a.kraft@vumc.org) is clinical staff leader for ENT and neurologic surgery at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital in Nashville.

Articles in this issue

Links on this page

Archives of this issue

view archives of Outpatient Surgery Magazine - COVID-19 Crisis - April 2020 - Subscribe to Outpatient Surgery Magazine