Does the Surgical Pack Save Time?

Image is from Medline.com

A lot of time gets lost during the preparation of surgical equipment. This includes acquisition, sterilization, and arrangement of surgical trays. This lost time increases operational costs and can also cost lives.

Surgical packs, known as custom trays or CPT’s (customized procedure trays), are the solution. In this article, we will discuss how you can save time using custom trays.

Solutions

Every surgeon requires solutions that include maintaining sterility, minimizing the risk of error, reducing waste, and saving as much time as possible, which ultimately leads to assuring that no patient’s life is lost. Implementing the use of custom trays, in this case, surgical trays, is the ideal way to achieve these goals.

The concept behind these custom trays is to have all instruments for a particular procedure bundled in one package, which saves time in several ways:

• Your surgical assistant or nurse no longer has to spend time gathering each individual component for each procedure, freeing up more time for patient care.
• Bringing together all of the surgical components reduces the need for packaging each tool individually.
• Custom trays can be stored in a single location, which makes them faster and easier to retrieve, and lowers storage needs.
• Packaging custom trays is faster than wrapping each component separately.
• No longer is it necessary to hunt and gather supplies and equipment in various locations.
• The chance of human error is reduced.
• Since custom trays are sterilized and prepackaged, there is less handling by the staff, which reduces the risk of infection that can lead to complications and more time needed for patient care.

Other Benefits

These include:

• Improved Efficiency – Since preparation time is reduced, you can perform more procedures in less time. As a result, patient waiting time is also reduced, because their procedures are performed sooner.
• Reduced Cost – Since you can get an entire custom tray from one supplier, you will save time and money formerly spent on numerous suppliers.
• Reduced Waste – Since only necessary instruments are provided, the use of custom trays can reduce the number of clinical waste bags by 50%.
• Funds Released – Hospitals used to store a massive amount of surgical equipment before the advent of custom trays. Custom trays are delivered JIT (just-in-time), so storage space can be used for other purposes. If you are not aware of the term just-in-time, it is an inventory strategy that allows you to receive products only as they are needed.

Because they save time and money, custom trays can also save lives. There is more time for surgical procedures and more funds for training and equipment. This translates into successful operations, which helps to build your reputation as a skilled physician.