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.

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ware had the capability to provide that information, but our routine workflow prevented us from using it to increase efficiencies, improve the flow of instru- ments, as well as their maintenance and longevity, and improve the relationship between central sterile and the ORs. To understand why staff didn't always engage our tracking software, you must first know how it's intended to work. Scheduled cases are loaded into the system the day before surgery. Members of the central sterile team pick needed instruments and supplies, and then load them onto individual case carts. A team member then scans individual instrument trays to link them to specific cases and patients, and scans the case cart to pair it and its contents with the OR in which it will be used. The next day, the scanned carts and instruments are delivered to ORs, where nurses need to scan only the carts to pair them to the cases they're working. If additional instrument trays are requested, a nurse would have to scan it to link it to the patient's unique barcode because the instruments weren't on the list of needed equipment. When we began to investigate why we couldn't trace the drill's use, we discovered sterile processing staff members scanned instrument trays and carts only 30% to 40% of the time. I huddled with the sterile processing team to ask a simple question: Why don't you scan instru- ments on a consistent basis? The reasons varied, from not receiving consistent education on how the system works to forgetting to scan under the pressure of a consis- tently heavy workload. Their feedback provided the guidance we needed to make necessary changes to our workflows. • Improved communication. The education we provided sterile pro- cessing team members and OR nurses on proper scanning practices A P R I L 2 0 2 0 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y. N E T • 7 5 • QUICK SCAN Scanning trays can be done in seconds, but incorporating the practice into daily work routines takes longer.

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