Standardizing Inventory Reduces Reprocessing Time and Costs Through Worker Task Familiarity in Medical Devices

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Management
• Surgical Technology
• Operations Research

Background:

• Surgical instrument inventory optimization offers significant cost savings via tray reduction.
• Reduced inventory variety enhances healthcare worker efficiency by minimizing task diversity.
• Hypothesized that standardizing surgical trays improves reprocessing time, labor costs, and staff satisfaction.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the impact of surgical instrument tray standardization on reprocessing efficiency.
• To quantify labor cost reductions associated with optimized inventory.
• To assess changes in medical device reprocessing (MDR) technician satisfaction.

Main Methods:

• A 12-month observational study was conducted in an academic hospital's MDR department.
• Data collected before and after inventory optimization.
• Outcome measures included MDR time savings, labor cost reduction, and anonymized worker satisfaction surveys.

Main Results:

• New MDR technicians showed significantly higher time savings (14 ± 6.2 min) compared to experienced technicians (4.6 ± 5.7 min).
• Total annual reprocessing cost savings amounted to $2,575.96 CAD.
• A majority of technicians preferred the standardized trays (89% new, 63% experienced).

Conclusions:

• Standardizing surgical trays is an effective strategy for enhancing operational efficiency.
• The optimization process leads to substantial cost reductions in surgical instrument reprocessing.
• Improved staff satisfaction is a key benefit of standardized surgical tray systems.