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from there.
Despite an expansion of the SPD's space and an upgrade to the equipment, there's still not enough capacity to handle the entire workload, so the company takes about 30% of the instruments off-site for overnight reprocessing. The vendor's staff sort by tray and create a priority processing schedule to ensure instrument tray availability the next day.
"They bring not only the technical competence and skills, the company also helps us on the business side," says Ms. Byrd.
First, the vendor tracks and reports flashing levels and trends in instrument shortages. Quarterly, they sit as a service line for a business review with hospital and company representatives to evaluate whether instruments should be procured or retired from circulation. When new instrument sets evolve, the vendor's staff takes care of determining which instruments can go into the new sets, to cut down on purchasing outlay.
"In the past, you had a single nurse or materials management person doing purchasing," says Ms. Byrd.
"Now, there's a structured process based on throughput
