Sterile Processing An investigation by media outlet Spotlight PA found that “Penn State Health struggled to maintain a usable supply of sterile instruments for the thousands of surgeries it performed at the Milton S. Hershey Medical Center throughout 2025 and into this year.” “Internal documents” obtained by Spotlight PA discussed “persistent, mysterious black…
The U.S. Department of War’s Defense Visual Information Distribution Service (DVIDS) published a story last week about the sterile processing department (SPD) at Naval Hospital Bremerton (NHB) that’s a mix of lighthearted and, to anyone who works in perioperative services, alarming. It’s about how NHB’s SPD staff members held a…
I have spent over a decade turning around underperforming organizations. Different industries, different leadership cultures, different balance sheets. The presenting problem is always different, but the root cause lands in the same place more than 80 percent of the time: people. Specifically, the absence of any real infrastructure to develop…
As margins tighten and labor pressures intensify, perioperative leaders are re-evaluating the levers that shape everyday efficiency and performance. One such lever — used in every OR, by every team, for every case — is the preference card. Surgeon preference cards have long held a conflicted identity: they’re indispensable, yet…
The first case of the day is a complex orthopedic procedure. Loaner trays were expected the afternoon before but arrived late in the evening. Sterile processing adjusted priorities to accommodate the load. The industry representative is already in the department at 6:00 a.m., confirming instrumentation and reviewing implant availability with…
Gritman Medical Center in Moscow, Idaho, announced that its upgraded sterile processing department went operational this week following an 18-month project to enhance services and upgrade surgical capacity. The project began with construction of a new electrical room on the northeast side of hospital’s main campus, which allowed Gritman to power…
The centralization of medical device processing to one facility is becoming more prevalent. Centralizing sterile processing activities reduces expenses while concentrating expertise. However, this also introduces new concerns. When sterile processing is located within the same building where instrumentation is used, transport occurs over smooth floors in a controlled environment…
Once limited to hospital inpatient settings, total joint surgery is increasingly common at ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) across the US. What is not so common is performing these complex procedures without the benefit of an onsite sterile processing department (SPD). And yet, that is exactly what we have accomplished at…
Editor’s Note: This page is a companion piece to the main article, Centralized sterile processing cuts costs, complexity for four ASCs. Implementing offsite sterilization is a major project. At Total Joint Specialists, our journey began gradually, growing in scope over time as the team became comfortable with the process…
Preventing infection from contaminated surgical tools requires attention to every link in a complex chain of processes, from point-of-use pretreatment in the OR to the moment the freshly disinfected or sterilized item arrives at the next patient’s bedside. For those on the front lines, manufacturers’ written instructions for use (IFUs)…
