Ideas That Work: Create Order From Chaos in the Implant Room

Practical pearls from your colleagues

Circulators were having difficulty locating implants in the implant room at OAM Surgery Center at MidTowne, an orthopedics-only ASC in Grand Rapids, Mich. The problem had reached the point that some surgeons had grown increasingly concerned with how long it was taking for circulators to track down and transport the correct implants for their cases.

OR Manager Grace Patton, MBA, BSN, RN, CNOR, says the number of implants — and the vendors who made them — had grown unwieldy because over two dozen surgeons operate at OAM. With many focused on specific subspecialties such as hand, foot and ankle, sports, spine and total joints, each have their own unique implant needs.

Ms. Patton and OAM’s clinical inventory specialist, who purchases supplies for the center, collaborated to create a simple solution for the organizational chaos in the implant room. “We decided to make labels that were color-coded to each surgeon and also the type of procedure,” she says.

They used bright colors as an easy indicator for circulators entering the visually overwhelming area. They also rearranged the implants to be grouped by procedure — such as rotator cuff, ACL and so on — and placed different vendors’ implants on their own separate carts.

Ms. Patton says the changes in the reorganized implant room were communicated to staff via email as well as during morning huddles. These communication methods encouraged useful feedback from staff regarding the changes.

“The project was successful because of the help of multiple different professionals working together for a common goal,” says Ms. Patton. “It was particularly important to get input from our clinical inventory specialist because organization is imperative for accurate ordering purposes. If implants aren’t grouped together, then over-ordering or under-ordering could happen.” She adds that OAM’s vendors played a key role in helping to identify each implant for each surgeon and procedure. OSM