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Staff shortages, budget cuts, instrumentation challenges, outdated equipment and ineffective interdepartmental relationships are all-too-common occurrences for many central service departments.
Individually, each element can have a negative impact on quality, outcomes and operating efficiencies. Combined, they can wreak havoc on morale, increase turnaround time, damage a hospital's reputation with physicians and patients, and in some cases, make administrators question whether they should scrap the majority of the sterile processing department's responsibilities and hand their problems over to an outsourcing company instead.
Although the desire to ditch core CS duties may appear logical on the surface, industry experts agree that such a move may not always be in a facility's best interest. And interestingly enough, CS departments that are rife with problems and system breakdowns may, in fact, be the worst candidates for outsourcing of wide-range sterile processing functions, they noted.
"There is a place for outsourcing where sterile processing is concerned, but it's a big step that should not be taken without carefully considering the unique needs of the facility," said Natalie Lind, educational director for the International Association of Healthcare Central Service Materiel Management and central processing department manager for Saint Cloud Hospital, Saint Cloud, MN. "I can see outsourcing working well in some instances and not so well in others, which is why it's so important to facilities to evaluate and fully understand their options."
In the realm of CS, those options are many. Although no clear-cut studies exist to identify with accuracy the prevalence of the practice, some estimate that approximately 12% of facilities are outsourcing at least some departmental functions. Such services can run the gamut from interim or long-term management and staffing to partial or complete on- or offsite maintenance of surgical instrumentation and equipment processing. Specialized staff development and training solutions, and comprehensive consulting services geared toward process improvement are other oft-sought solutions.
"There's often the misconception that outsourcing means providing services only from a remote location and requires that central processing departments relinquish all control to the outsourcing company. But that isn't the case," explained Ray Taurasi, director of business development, case Medical Inc., Ridgefield, NJ. The truth, he said, is that outsourcing services should be carefully tailored to allow CS departments to focus their attention and resources...