Medline says that surgical packs can boost efficiency to help deal with surgical backlogs
by CM Staff
From an efficiency perspective, surgical packs reduce setup time, maximize storage, boost productivity and minimize waste while optimizing product utilization and clinical accuracy.
Surgical packs enable clinicians to get the items they need packaged and ready to go in sterile and non-sterile formats. (CNW Group/Medline Canada, Corporation)
MISSISSAUGA — After nearly three years of facing COVID-19, hospitals continue to feel its impacts as staffing resources stretch to their limits. A report in the Toronto Star found that in a period of just over two months, there were 86 instances where emergency rooms were closed at 17 different hospitals in Ontario, totalling more than 1,700 hours of lost service.
This comes when surgical waitlists continue to grow – exasperated by the pandemic. In 2021, the median wait time between referral from a general practitioner and receipt of treatment was 25.6 weeks — up from 22.6 weeks in 20202. Hospitals must find innovative ways to improve efficiencies to tackle these problems.
Operating rooms (ORs) are one of the most critical areas in a hospital regarding patient well-being, budget health and clinical team morale. Maximizing efficiency in the OR is essential — scheduling surgeries, equipment preparation, allocation of resources, preparation of procedures, performance during surgery and more are all factors that influence performance.
One trend in boosting productivity in ORs has been using surgical packs. Surgical packs enable clinicians to get the items they need packaged and ready to go in sterile and non-sterile formats, making the manual task of picking every item a thing of the past.
Surgical packs are customizable, but a typical kit would have all the materials and equipment for surgery in one place: gowns, gauze, sponges, specimen cups, sutures and suction tubing, and more.
From an efficiency perspective, surgical packs reduce setup time, maximize storage, boost productivity and minimize waste while optimizing product utilization and clinical accuracy. Given that some of the main factors that lengthen turnover times in ORs include inefficient processing of instruments, surgical packs represent an opportunity to tackle these fundamental problems.
Medline say their kitting experts work to analyze clinical and supply chain needs to maximize greater efficiencies and cost savings at the site level. Given the global uncertainty surrounding the effectiveness of supply chains, having agile professionals who can provide appropriate product substitution can go a long way in offsetting this issue.
Surgical packs are part of Medline’s Complete Delivery System (CDS), which try and help medical facilities simplify their supply management by using methodologies to link people, processes and supplies with proven time and cost savings.
