Surgical instruments: the unmanaged asset

Hundreds of thousands of dollars are invested in surgical instruments in hospitals. Materiel management and central service professionals should focus attention on managing this asset, just as we have done for supply and linen inventories. However, there are no performance standards against which to measure performance in this area; in fact, there are not even any commonly accepted indicators of surgical instrument inventories. The purpose of this article is to stimulate interest in the issue of surgical instrument inventory, so that materiel management and central service professionals will begin collecting data that will eventually allow definition of performance standards. Indicators of performance are suggested, specifically: 1. The number of "pars" of instruments in inventory, where one par equals the average amount of instruments used in one day. 2. The average of the value of instruments used per surgical procedure. Management of surgical instrument inventories could become a new source of both one-time savings (by reducing purchasing as inventories decrease) and ongoing annual savings (by decreasing the size of instrument trays in use).