In March, our Voice of the Customer (VOC) Committee gathered to discuss a topic that can play a critical role in sterile processing departments but often gets overshadowed: Data. We partnered with Gene Ricupito, Senior Project Manager, Sterile Processing at UCSF Health to do a deep dive on solving problems using data.

Collecting data in your department helps you understand trends and challenges. The power of data, however, comes when you start acting on its findings and solving problems with it. What problems can managers solve using departmental data?

The Easiest Problems to Solve

Purchasing Decisions

Purchasing decisions are excellent to approach with data. One great example is packaging decisions and determining whether to purchase more containers or wrap.

Analyzing usage of containers, you can determine how quickly it will “pay” for itself. Every use reduces the cost per use based on your investment. Including this with data regarding wrap integrity concerns and number of incident reports, managers can begin forming a basis to go with one or another.

Data tracking systems can show how often trays need to be moved between facilities. Containers offer better protection during transport, so if you expect frequent movement, containers may be the best option.

By using data on usage, incident reports, and transfer frequency, sterile processing managers can determine the best packaging method to invest in.

Performance and Productivity

Tracking systems are great for delivering information on activities occurring throughout a facility and demonstrating productivity levels. Creating process points throughout a department enables managers to get visibility into elapsed times between activities, ultimately providing a “data map” of throughput in the department.

Using data from these process points, managers can begin assessing what the root cause of the issue might be. Potential causes might include:

• Poor or insufficient equipment
• Lack of personnel
• Poorly utilized personnel
• Training

After identifying the root cause of the slowdown or bottleneck, managers can experiment with ways to improve throughput.

For instance, a process point in decontamination might signal that assigning two technicians is insufficient. A manager can allocate a third more resources and review data after several shifts to determine if throughput increased.  If it was, they now know that decontam needs a team of three to operate at the level the facility requires.

The Most Important Problems to Solve Using Data

Some problems must be approached in a data-driven way due to their complex nature.

Staff Justification

Managers must fine-tune their utilization of staff to meet departmental goals. However, even an optimally utilized team can only do so much. When managers determine that decontamination needs an additional sterile processing technician, they reassign someone from another part of the department. Staff allocation is a zero-sum game: if you take someone from assembly and put them in decon, assembly is now down one person.

By using data from tracking systems and scorecards, SPD managers can make a case for hiring more staff. Analyzing process points, department throughput, and output over time helps decision makers see how moving staff from one area to another can solve one problem but create another.

Objective data helps managers demonstrate that even when utilized at an optimal level, the number of people they have just isn’t enough to take care of the facility’s volume.

Equipment Justification

Capital equipment investment is a huge opportunity for any department; oftentimes a new piece of equipment can solve many problems that data is helping identify. As many SPD professionals know firsthand, getting new equipment is a rare chance, and SPD leadership often need to do a substantial amount of internal advocation to make it happen. This is where data becomes essential.

In many instances, it’s easy to “know” that your department needs something, such as a sink, table, sterilizer, or washer, but getting approval for the purchase of one is exceedingly difficult. Data can provide the numerical basis for new equipment in a few ways but boils down to one fundamental concept: throughput must match volume.

Managers can use data from their tracking systems to identify where bottlenecks are forming and slowing down throughput. They can compare it to volume growth over time and demonstrate that investment in sterile processing has not matched volume growth. If you’ve had the same equipment for 20 years and volume has grown 40% during that time, your department is not configured to meet the facility’s needs.

When To Leave Data Out of the Equation

Data and information collected from a department has a lot of uses and can help solve many problems, but there are some things that managers don’t need data to remedy.

Environment of Care

Creating an environment of care doesn’t require data, it requires thoughtfulness. Partnering with infection control and regularly walking through your department helps solve small problems before they grow and ensures your department’s safety.

Some of these include:

• Looking for rust on equipment
• Ensuring dust isn’t accumulating in your department
• Spotting and repairing dents and holes in your walls
• Conducting maintenance on equipment
• Keeping up with compliance standards

Soft Skills

No amount of data will help managers when they need to manage. Interpersonal disputes between teammates require a tactful, human touch to help solve. Similarly, data can reveal low morale through lower productivity, but it cannot fix it.

Showing appreciation for your team, advocating for them internally, and demonstrating you’re there to help them serve as ways to improve team morale. Next, review the productivity metrics.

What to Watch Out For

Using data to solve problems can help a manager transform their department, but it doesn’t come without its risks.

Get An Accurate Picture

Garbage in, garbage out. If inadequate processes and controls are in place to ensure that the data being collected is good, managers might find themselves in a tight spot. Using bad data to justify actions in the department can cause a slew of problems, for instance:

• Misuse of technicians
• Making changes that hurt productivity
• Using inaccurate data when speaking with decision makers, hurting your credibility

The accuracy of your data can be a huge asset, but inaccuracy of your data can be a huge liability.

Get the Whole Picture

Accurate data is useful, but if you can’t understand its significance or how it fits into the bigger picture, it’s meaningless. For example, if a department logs its errors but doesn’t track total tray count, you only know the number of errors, not the error rate. Similarly, measuring only cases leads to inaccurate tray counts.

Many metrics benefit from association or comparison with each other. Setting up processes and a scorecard that allows you to compare and contrast different pieces of information will give you the whole picture, and not just a sliver of it.

Conclusion

Data can be incredibly useful for a wide range of problem solving. From optimizing your department, to hiring that new employee you need, to updating your equipment to match volume and better support the needs of your facility. While a data-driven approach cannot solve all problems, it can address many important ones.

Interested in learning more about using data in your department? Check out the other posts in our Voice of the Customer blog series on data:

Studying Your Department: Where to Start and How to Gather Data

Don’t Let the Work Around Become the Workflow – Optimizing Your Department with Data

About: Voice of the Customer Committee

The Voice of the Customer Committee is a panel of healthcare and instrument reprocessing professionals who have graciously donated their time to share their expertise and guidance on current challenges faced by the instrument reprocessing community. Through sharing their insights, experiences, and best practices, we have been given the opportunity to share these findings with our readership. We’d like to thank our VOC members for their outstanding input and insights, as well as their time! Thank you for your continued partnership, and all you do.