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SECOND FEATURE
PERIOP BRIEFING
Surgical supply waste: putting it all on the table
Kelly Putnam, Managing Editor
Unused surgical supplies add up to more than two million pounds of waste each year in the United States.1 Much of this waste includes
items that perioperative personnel opened before the procedure to have supplies available to the surgeon at a moments notice and unused sterilized items that were packaged together with a needed supply.1,2
Whether the goal is to adopt environmentally friendly practices or reduce costs, team members can support a culture of efciency by making informed choices when selecting products to purchase, use, and open. Periop Brieng spoke to Eric Moore, BSN, RN, nurse educator, and Todd Cooper, BSN, RN, process improvement engineer, about the case-costing programs they implemented at Spectrum Health to reduce supply-line waste and costs.
Achieving cost transparency
Changes in supply management may require a shift in mindset among perioperative personnel.A cultural thing that OR personnel have had for a long time is the practice of opening everything that we may possibly need, said Moore. We need to move towards opening only what we need right now and have available to us what we might need, trying be mindful of the things we are opening, using, and wasting. This cultural shift should be accomplished without compromising the quality of care, and it is important to frame the messaging around awareness and waste reduction rather than an implication that personnel would be forced to change their practice in ways they deem unacceptable.
To actively reduce surgical supply waste and costs, perioperative personnel need to learn the price of each supply. One way to achieve this transparency is...