Ideas That Work: Bringing Specialty Leads to Central Sterile Processing

Practical pearls from your colleagues

Back in our March issue, we featured an Idea That Works regarding the establishment of nurse specialty leads at WellSpan Apple Hill Surgical Center in York, Pa. An OR nurse assigned as the “point lead” for each surgical specialty at the multispecialty ASC collaborates with the nurse manager, surgeons, providers and supply chain personnel to improve communication among the various disciplines in the interest of making each surgical day more efficient, with less unexpected surprises that can send the schedule off the tracks.

Now Apple Hill has extended the concept to its five-technician central sterile processing (CSP) department. Led by CSP Manager Melissa Zarfos, CRCST, CIS, the CSP team developed a process to connect with the nurse specialty leads.

They created an OR specialties book, which they utilize daily, that includes details on supplies that are coming and going for different specialties. Using this resource, CSP staff can better prepare for the arrival of instrumentation sets needed for upcoming cases, and review the relevant Instructions for Use for proper sterilization. A CSP staffer communicates with the appropriate nursing specialty lead if concerns exist about instrumentation availability or to address any possible delays.

The department has also developed specialty leads of its own who collaborate with corresponding nurse specialty leads to focus on instrument set building, improvements and standardization. As with the nurse specialty leads, a backup CSP staff member is assigned to cover in the absence of the primary lead. In addition, each CSP technician covers a specific specialty, but is cross-trained on other specialties to ensure there is no disruption of daily coverage in case of callouts or PTO.

“With this more cohesive responsibility of our CSP team members, there is broader intradepartmental communication occurring at the CSP team huddles every day,” says Clinical Education Specialist Tabitha Hoffman, MSN, RN, RNC-OB, NPD-BC. “Even if a technician may not be the primary lead for a specific specialty, the entire CSP team gets informed about supplies and important information that could impact other members of the team.”

Ms. Hoffman says the changes have aligned the “behind the scenes” CSP department more closely with the facility’s intraoperative teams, improving the workflow of the entire ASC in the process. OSM