6 6 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E • S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 9
T
here were
boxes of
suture hiding
everywhere at
AdventHealth
Surgery Center Lenexa
(Kan.), some opened and
some outdated, some
stored on the big suture
cart and some stored on
smaller suture carts,
enough suture to stitch a
thousand incisions and to
sink a supply room budget.
"We had multiple open
boxes of the same suture
stored on 4 suture carts in
multiple locations," says
Valerie Heckmaster, MBA,
BSN, RN, CNOR, the charge
nurse who won the OR Excellence Award for Financial Management
for taming the overstocked suture situation at her 4-OR facility.
When suture expired, as it often would, staff would remove and dis-
card an average of 15-20 boxes at a time — some expired boxes were
still sealed, says Ms. Heckmaster, adding that the vicious cycle would
repeat itself when materials management automatically reordered the
FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT
Taming a Tangled Suture Inventory
Bringing order to a disorderly suture supply — on a single suture cart
in a single location. Dan O'Connor | Editor-in-Chief
• STITCH IN TIME Valerie Heckmaster, MBA, BSN, RN, CNOR, charge
nurse at AdventHealth Surgery Center Lenexa (Kan.), whipped her facility's
unwieldy suture inventory into shape.
AdventHealth
Surgery
Center
Lenexa
(Kan.)