How Does Supply Data Reflect Reduced Costs in CPT?
Changing Methods to Decrease Waste
Custom procedure trays are medical trays that are made up of different instruments, tools, and medical supplies needed for specific procedures. There are hundreds of different procedure trays to reflect the particular process intended.
Years ago, facilities made up custom procedure trays which proved to be a waste of time and money.
- Staff had to locate the missing item.
- The doctor had to halt his procedure until the employee delivered the needed item.
- Missing procedure instruments equals poor quality of care to you the patient.
- If the doctor and you, the patient must wait for a needed tool for your procedure, this could affect your outcome.
- Facilities constructed an Autoclave Room or Sterilization room and had to train staff to sterilize instruments, packaging them for specific procedures.
- Sometimes the person making up custom procedure trays for their institution put too many of one item in the tray and was wasteful spending for the facility.
Relying on Vendors for Prepackaged Trays
When facilities hire a vendor to pick up and deliver sterile and nonsterile equipment these trays come wrapped and are ready for the employee to grab and give to the doctor. In the end, this saves a lot of money, frustration, and time for you, the patient, the physician, nurses, staff, and facility.
The facility’s team of professional staff manages and reviews these custom procedure trays to make sure the trays utilize to the fullest. Review of tray contents decreases wasteful spending.
It is not wise for a facility to hire more than one vendor to pick up and deliver newly packaged custom procedure trays. Facilities find that if they hire more than one vendor, there are likely to be missing, incorrect, or too many items. Hiring more than one vendor is found to be a waste of money for the facility.
Waste Audits are Vital
Facility teams familiar with contents of custom procedure trays, performs a waste audit of procedure trays. Waste audits help to determine if an item is missing and would be beneficial to the procedure.
This team of professionals decides whether or not items put into a unique custom procedure tray are of any use. This review of essential custom procedure trays for specific procedures helps to decrease that facility’s waste of money.
Facilities find that if they develop and review a contents schedule for vendors to follow it contributes to determining what that facility needs on each tray.
It is a waste of money for manufacturers to put sterile items in nonsterile custom procedure trays. So the contents are carefully monitored by the vendors and the facilities.
There must be a certain number of items packaged in each custom procedure tray. If the manufacturer adds more than the specified items needed or includes elements that are useless to the procedure the custom procedure tray is meant.
The doctor may want an item to be available for a procedure but may end up, noting using the tool, becoming a waste of money.
When custom procedure trays are not optimized for each procedure, the facility is not making the best use of the instruments and materials used for that procedure. Tracking systems for needed and used tools and material is a valuable asset to any facility to help save money, assuring there is no waste.
In Conclusion
When an institution discovers the most cost-effective way to create custom procedure trays, the doctor has all the tools he needs, you, the patient continues to have quality care, and the savings to the facility is significant with a decrease in wasted time and money.
