2. Productivity pressures
It's a simple fact: When people are pressed for time and under a high
degree of stress, they're more likely to make mistakes and cut corners.
In the world of outpatient surgery, where there is a general push to
perform as many procedures as possible in a given day, stressful work
is the de facto state of affairs.
"Surgical volumes have increased tremendously, which leads to pro-
ductivity pressures," says Ms. Horvath. She suggests adjusting your ster-
ile processing staffing levels and having enough instruments on hand
for the types and volumes of the procedures you perform. She adds that
you should notify the sterile processing team of schedule changes as
soon as possible so they can adjust their staffing assignments and refo-
cus their priorities on the instruments you'll need for the new cases.
3. Knowledge deficits
More and more, your reprocessing techs are likely to encounter
instruments that are unfamiliar to them and require special cleaning
regimens that they don't know how to perform. Ms. Horvath provides
an example: A surgeon adds a new procedure. A vendor rep comes in
with the new instruments and trains the OR team on how to use them.
Reprocessing techs receive a paper copy of the instruments' IFUs, but
no in-service to learn how to clean and sterilize the tools. There's no
opportunity for them to ask questions or have their concerns
addressed before the instruments show up for sterilization. Does that
make sense?
The availability of up-to-date and easy-to-understand IFUs is also a
common issue, notes Ms. Horvath. Another problem, she says, is that
the sterile processing department is often not involved in the purchas-
ing decisions of new instruments, so techs might not have the knowl-
edge or equipment needed to reprocess devices that you purchase.
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