Outpatient Surgery Magazine

Would You Operate On This Patient? - October 2015 - 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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Instrument and implant manufacturers have to supply instru- ments, stock an inven- tory of supplies and pay reps to work cases and organize materials at facilities. Those are all incurred expenses, points out Dr. Botimer, who approached the manufacturers Loma Linda works with about selling their implants directly to the hospital at a fair price, eliminat- ing the need for vendor reps in the facility. "We did everything we could to take those expenses away from the manufacturer," he says. "We tried to make it a win-win. Except for the reps — it wasn't a win for them." Administrators at Loma Linda picked top-performing orthopedic techs — who were already familiar with the instrumentation and knew how to perform knee replacements as well as, if not better than, the reps — and contracted with a consulting firm to provide the same 6-month training vendors receive when major instrument manufactur- ers hire them. The former techs are now known as OR device techni- cians. By eliminating reps, Loma Linda now buys implants for $1,500 to 1 6 9 O C T O B E R 2 0 1 5 | O U T P A T I E N TS U R G E R Y. N E T Pamela Bevelhymer, RN, BSN z IN-HOUSE HELP Surgical techs trained to manage needed equip- ment and supplies play the role of vendor rep.

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