Growing demand and the ongoing labor shortage leave hospitals struggling to keep surgeries on schedule and manage soaring costs. While the operating room is often the highest revenue generator within a typical hospital, it also is a large cost center – due in part to high surgical instrument management costs. Using surgical instrument and tray tracking software, it has been estimated that a 300-bed hospital can save as much as $500,000 a year from increased productivity of clinical and sterile processing staff, error prevention and reduced instrument repair/replacement costs.

As one of the nation’s largest group medical practices, operating a 325-bed teaching hospital, community clinics, eye clinics and pharmacies in western Wisconsin, northeastern Iowa and southeastern Minnesota, Gundersen Lutheran Health System sought to improve inefficiencies across the organization as part of a quality improvement initiative. Lacking a way to track instrument trays and locations in real-time, the O.R., sterile processing and materials management departments pursued an automated surgical instrument management system to help ensure the right instruments and trays are available when and where they are needed – a critical task that needs to be done effectively to deliver on the organization’s mission of providing high-quality patient care.

After extensively analyzing options, Gundersen Lutheran selected and implemented Lawson Software’s Surgical Instrument Management (SIM) software to reduce surgery delays and control instrument and staff costs by automating the management of its tray sets.

 As happens many times with IT and process changes, O.R., sterile processing and materials management department managers were convinced of SIM’s time and cost-saving capabilities, but were faced with convincing staff. To secure employee buy-in, Gundersen Lutheran ran a pilot of the application. The pilot program’s efficiency and productivity improvements led to a hospital-wide rollout and plans to install the application in its new ambulatory center that serves 35 area clinics.

Prior to Lawson, the healthcare provider relied on manual, "recipe card" tray assembly instructions and count sheet management, leaving room for human error and taking longer than necessary to assemble tray sets. For instance, sterilization records had to be documented manually, making load recalls difficult and time consuming to track. In addition, tray set and instrument pictures were managed manually in three ring binders.

Today, Gundersen Lutheran staff interacts with SIM using computer workstations on their network or handheld devices in a completely wireless environment. Utilizing bar coding, Internet and wireless technologies, the software allows users to view trays and instruments using digital photo imagery, printed count sheets and bar code labels (including exception labels), and capture and verify tasks with bar code scanning. The software also allows Gundersen Lutheran staff to associate count sheets with all trays and record sterilization contents, mechanical results and biological/chemical test information. SIM has given Gundersen Lutheran the ability to completely update count sheets electronically, helping to eliminate the paper trail to the O.R. and reduce administrative errors.

The application has enabled Gundersen Lutheran to optimize staff time, making for more cost effective O.R., sterile processing and materials management departments. Gundersen Lutheran estimates that it has reduced the amount of time needed to train its instrument processing staff by 30 percent because the automated system, with pictures of instruments and easy-to-follow-instructions for sterilization procedures, is easier to learn than the many "steps" previously needed to process and sterilize trays.

Since going live in January 2004, SIM already has helped Gundersen Lutheran optimize its instrument inventory levels and increase performance and accuracy of staff assembling surgical trays and carts. Specifically, the system has lowered the occurrence of missing items in instrument sets by 50 percent and brought more accountability and information to Gundersen Lutheran’s instrument processes. This directly improves the hospital’s bottom line and enhances patient care by reducing the number of delayed or cancelled surgeries.

Gundersen Lutheran’s usage of Surgical Instrument Management has been such a success the hospital has agreed to act as a beta client for the upgraded application that was generally made available from Lawson in October 2004. The new release of SIM makes it the only product of its kind that integrates with Lawson Supply Chain Management Suite and leading O.R. management systems. The new version will provide further streamlining and accuracy in the management of Gundersen Lutheran’s surgical instruments and trays. HPN

Rod Brueggeman is central service manager at Gundersen Lutheran Medical Center and has been in the position for five years. Prior to his current position, Rod spent five years as operations manager at Griffith Analytical Laboratories, an Industrial Sterilization Testing Laboratory.Rod also has six years experience working as a central services technician at Gundersen Lutheran. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Microbiology from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.