Ideas That Work: Keep Surgery and Sterile Processing Connected

Last-minute changes to the surgical schedule, surgeon requests or cases that require specialized instrumentation could throw a wrench into how smoothly instruments flow through your facility. Installing a whiteboard in the hall outside of the ORs enables members of the surgical team to note specific instrument needs for upcoming cases that could impact when specific trays or tools are needed. For example, they could notify sterile processing that the instruments being used during the 9 a.m. case in OR 4 need to be reprocessed and returned to OR 7 for a procedure scheduled to begin at 4 p.m.

That alert lets reprocessing techs plan ahead to have the instruments ready without rushing and cutting corners in the sterilization process,” says Julie Jackson, a-IPC, CST, MEd, FAST, an infection prevention consultant based in Munith, Mich.

A lead sterile processing tech can check the board for updates and note on the board that requests have been acknowledged, the status of needed instruments and when requests have been completed. “This method of communication keeps staffs in the ORs and sterile processing on the same page, which improves collaboration between the groups,” says Ms. Jackson.