Welcome to consensus, a podcast from census technologies. Hello everyone, and welcome to this episode of consensus brought to you by census technologies I'm your host, Tyler Curran. Thank you so much for being here for this episode today. Now today actually kicks off a three part episode series talking about census. I squared productivity. And for this conversation, I brought on three guests. I have Seamus Johnson. He's the senior director of application development at census. Jeff long, the Network Director of sterile processing at St. Luke's University Health network, and Cody trout, director of Central sterile at Williamson medical. And so I had these three guys on and we had a long, long ranging conversation that we've broken up into three episodes for you to enjoy, and we think that that's a great idea. So that you get more bit-sized chunks of the great information that they were sharing just about what census squared productivity is capable of and how it's benefited them in their particular situations. And so in this first episode you're about to hear, we discussed why measuring productivity in sterile processing departments is essential. It's such an important thing. We also talked a little bit more about the staffing challenges that SPD departments face in today's health care landscape. And then we finally wrap up talking about validating those staffing needs through actionable data, all things that the census I squared productivity brings to the forefront. And so enjoy this first episode of the series and then stay tuned for episodes two and 3 coming your way very, very shortly. Enjoy Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of consensus I'm your host today, Tyler Curran. Thanks so much for joining us. For another episode of the program today we're going to be discussing census I squared productivity, which delivers complete visibility into SPD productivity, leveraging the power of AI. So we're going to get into some insights into the capabilities that this platform has to really transform your organization. And we're going to talk to two people who have a great deal of experience working with census I squared productivity and a product expert from the census side as well. So let me introduce them to you now. First, we have Seamus Johnson, senior director of application development at census. Seamus, welcome back to the show. Thanks for joining me, Tyler. Thanks for having me. Absolutely thrilled to have you on today, man. And we're also thrilled to be joined today by Jeff long. He's the Network Director of sterile processing at St. Luke's University Health Network. Jeff, Thanks for joining us. My pleasure. Glad to be here. And last but not least, we have Cody trout, director of Central sterile at Williamson medical. Cody welcome. Thank you, Tyler. Good to be here. Absolutely so, guys, before we dive in, I want to give the audience an opportunity to get to know you a little bit better, get to know your work and what you do. And so let's start off. I gave a brief introduction for all of you, but Jeff kicked us off. Tell us a little bit more about your role and what you do on a regular basis. Well, I'm the network SPD director for approximately 12 sites. That includes 13 spd's responsible for one educator. I have one quality compliance and safety coordinator. I have a resource coordinator. That's also our database, our sense of track manager and 5 managers managing up the 13 sites. And we actually support multiple end of endoscopy sites as well. Just real quickly about me, I've been in the field for over 30 years, started out as a flight medic in air force, background in or a scrub technician, many years as SPD technician and SPD management. Excellent excellent stuff. Thanks for that, Jeff. Cody, tell us a little bit more about yourself and your role. Yeah, so I'm coding director of CSS at Williamson Medical Center. Jeff, that's interesting. You were in the Air Force. I didn't know that about you, so I just learned something new. I was in the Air Force as well. Oh, great. So something in common there. But yeah, my agency has department here with oversight for everything. Hollywood disinfection, just the one site. So I don't have multiple sites like Jeff does, but just the one site. Excellent excellent stuff. Thank you for that, Cody, as well. And so wrap us up, Seamus. You're you're a return guest here on the podcast for people who maybe missed your previous episode. Give us a little introduction into Seamus. Yeah, absolutely. So I've been with census now since 2003. For most of that time I wrote code, so I was a software engineer. I help us figure out what cool new things we should go and build next to help our customers solve their biggest problems. I love it. I love it. That's that's a really nice and succinct answer. Good, good stuff. Seamus so so Cody and Jeff, tell us a little bit about why you were searching for tools to help you measure productivity in your sterile processing departments. What was it that kind of put you on the pathway for this search? I guess I'll go first. In my previous position before I came on board here at St. Luke's University hospital, I was responsible for the metrics, the data presentation for the OR meetings and our pi performance improvement meetings and things like that. And it would take me anywhere from 2 to three days per week. Just to collect the data, and then to put it into Excel and pivot tables. So I had also a couple of years ago gotten my receipt, my green belt in lean management and my Black belt lean management. So I was exposed to that, that different world of identifying problems and then measuring and then reporting metrics. So that's how I became interested in it. And then one day when I was speaking to seamus, when I came on board here, he told me the timing was perfect. They had something hot on the oven or hot on the stove, and they were working on it. So that's when we, we teamed up together and, and discussed it, piping hot updates from, from Seamus on cool products. Coby, tell us a little bit about that process for you as well. What kind of set you on this path? Yeah So I just I'm kind of a data nerd anyway. You can do spreadsheets and that type thing. I had initially developed kind of a non biased way to evaluate my staff. And so I wanted to take all the fuzzy feel goods out of it, attach numbers to it and true key measurements that were repeatable and relevant. And I even spoke about it with a few other podcasts and started a real conversation about it already being a census customer. Seamus had reached out to me. We'd done some projects in the past and he said, hey, you can give us your opinion on this thing. And I'm like, absolutely. And so it was, it was, it was great. To see that the market was responding to the needs that not just me, but other managers were putting out there about access to our data, what we're actually doing, what do these things really, truly look like instead of what I think they look like and, you know, 10 million spreadsheets and all that. Just all that. I totally agree. As leaders, we were starving for data to make decisions. And, you know, some of the common themes I had heard is, well, you're a director. Why don't you know that? I understand that, you know, but the information doesn't always filter or flow in the direction it should. And, you know, it's unique that codie has one big site. We probably have the same amount of employees, but he's got them all in one place and I have them all over the regional area. But, you know, our view is different because I have multiple sites and his view is different because he's large in one area, centralized area, but it's probably a big, huge campus to get from one place to another is takes forever. But in my send my respect perspective area I have to drive far and we don't always have our finger on the pulse unless we are made aware or we actually see it. Yeah, I think that, I think what you just said, man, that was really key. Like we were, we knew or we, we thought that we knew what the right decisions were. But we needed the we needed the proof. We needed the support. To prove that was the right decision. So I think I've kind of get in the head a little bit. I'm sorry I won't jump ahead, but passionate about this kind of thing. But Jeff, I mean. Nail on the head, man. Thank you. Appreciate that. Yeah, I think that's a really good point. Just being able to put hard data to what your assumptions already were or maybe that the data kind of showed you that you were not going in the right direction. And that's so, so helpful just to be able to say, hey, look, this is what the numbers are telling us. And I think that's absolutely right. And very, very well put by both of you. So I want to kind of get a lay of the land of the industry right now, just as it currently stands from a staffing perspective, speed, operations and productivity, all the different things that you're seeing out there. So starting off with those staffing shortages and challenges, finding and retaining qualified staff. Jeff and Cody, what challenges are you having when it comes to trying to staff these departments? Kody, kick us off with this one. Wow, what a conversation around staff. How long have I got? So So the staffing and the job market has changed. And that's being very, very generous. It's been very nice. So pre-covid, let's say a year before covid, if you had an opening, you would put your posting out local market on line, whatever it was. And by the time you were two weeks into a posting, you're calling or emailing HR or take the posting down. I can't I can't get through all the applicants. Just just take it down. I'll sort through what I got and I'll make a decision from there, you know, as opposed to now in this post COVID world, where so many experienced employees have, have, have left, the industry have either just left because it was no longer the risk reward wasn't there, or they've started traveling or one reason or another. Now the same facility, same reputation, better pay because pay rates have went up. You put a posting out and it just sits there for months and then you call your HR. Can you change the verbiage? Can you repost it? Can you bring it back to the top? What are some other tricks you got? You know, I've never seen such a change in recruiting in such a short period of time. And that's led to more speeds using travelers. Right and so. So for whatever reason, staff changed. So you've got this influx of travelers across the industry and it's a combination of things is one is just raising our operating costs because travelers cost more. But two, you're losing history and you're losing experience and you're losing consistency and buy in because travelers, even the best traveler, is they're on a temporary assignment. Right and so that's not a knock on travelers. They're great for what they are. They're a tool to be used, but they don't have buy in. They're not concerned about their children, have more than likely their children having a procedure there or their parent or sibling or whatever. You know, there's not that emotional investment that you would with an employee that lives in the community or close to it, or that may be a patient at that community facility. Something to that effect. And it's even to the point now that we're a couple of years into this thing where. You know, you have to be building for the future constantly. And so we lost experience. And so that changed our pool. And then the management side of SBDC markets is growing. There's an interest in it now. There's an interest across the c-suite, across the industry itself, different vendors, educators. And so there's this growing need for that. And so. When you pick a manager or an educator or whatever that. Spot that you need to fill is you're going to attempt to take the top tier employee. Well, then you're taking away from your productive employees. And you couple that with the fact that now you're having trouble recruiting. New employees to train. And so that forces you from a director's perspective or manager's perspective and really should be. Even a teamlease perspective, you have to constantly be training your replacement. You have to constantly train your replacement because if you go into a facility, whether you come up through it or you sell it for whatever the case may be, you're ahead of that facility at some level. Eventually you're going to leave. You're going to not make it to work one day. You're going to get promoted to another facility higher up. And whatever the case may be, you're going to leave one day. One of the worst things that can happen is you leave your position and your department, your whatever it is, fall apart. That's that's not an indicator of a good leader. And so that being said, like, you have to constantly be training your replacement and not just one, but maybe two or three options. And that's a constant flow. Jeff like what, what, what are your how does it look in your. Yeah Thanks. Cody know, I first got here at St. Luke's 14 months ago. What am I the my three top goals. The staffing was so bad was retention, hiring and time and attendance. All three of those go together. We just we had so many vacancies at the time. We were in about the 25th percentile for vacancy rate. We're at about 12% right now. But that was one of our know, because you have come up time, you have orientation, you have those that have institutional knowledge. I think, Cody, you alluded to that already about having that institutional knowledge. But, you know, those folks have to share that information about how the workflow is and how things work and how the OR likes it. The customer likes it. So there's a lot of orientation time. We what used to take six weeks to go through orientation for someone is now taking 12 weeks because we're hiring individuals with very little SPD experience or no experience. And so that's where we had started off in the beginning. And so what we're finding as far as the skills I mentioned it already, is that we're hiring individuals with no previous speed experience. We have to fall back now on personality traits and behavioral traits because we can teach them this skill. And so one thing I would like to mention, though, how we tie that back into senses eye square is we had senses for a long time. We just didn't have really any data or metrics to show which direction we needed to go. When I got here, we didn't have an educator or a quality person. We didn't have a database specialist to manage the center track system. So in order for me to rightsize that. And even for our budget, our staffing budget, we don't have a staffing budget per se. The amount of staffing is based upon the metrics and we have a unit of service type of metrics and that that's what determines our, our staffing needs. So I need a data and Thank I the fact that we had baseline data already in center track was very instrumental in at least getting our baseline data and having a starting point to show how much staffing we needed at each individual site and maybe where we needed to move individuals. One thing that we were able to identify also with the baseline data that we had was the fact that we would benefit from a float pool. So we took five technicians and created a position, new job description and we, we posted it. We had five internal individuals that were certified and well trained. And now what they do is they travel from our large site to the sites where they're needed. And that has helped tremendously with our metrics. And we've improved at least 20% of our metrics. We've gone from the red to green on every one of our sites now, because we have the right resources in the right place at the right time. And I wonder, Jeff, just from your perspective, is that with instrument tracking systems, the longer that you have them in place and the longer you're able to keep stuff, then you're able to have staff that become experts in these systems. Right and that can really be beneficial to the organization as a whole. Right when people know and understand how to use something like sensor track. Right and as most everybody in speed knows, I know Cody knows Seamus notice I know everyone knows this. The source of truth is the count sheet. Your account is inaccurate and/or if it's got discrepancy, maybe it's not clear, even you know, that's your source of truth. We live and die. That's our expression in speed. You live in die body count sheet. Same thing with preference cards or pick tickets. If those things aren't right, then the customer will let you know and you will have problems. So having a database or instrument tracking system that's maintained is key to this whole process. And that's one thing that I was able to present to senior leadership with through the use of the sensor track eye square and through other types of metrics. It helped with that decision making because, you know, the last thing that any leader wants to do is go into a Sr.'s c-suite and say, I need more staffing. They'll get up from behind a desk. They'll say, Thank you and then walk. The door, and you'll never you'll never see that office again. But there is a way to do it. And it's through data and it's through having a good plan. But you've got to be able to demonstrate on one page that the need and you have to be able to show the evidence. That's that's a really, really good point. And a lot of what I've heard from people is that when it comes to staffing, you have to show that you're maximizing the resources and the staffing that you already have. Right and that comes from having the data at your fingertips. Well, a good Steward of what they've already given you. You you have to prove that. And then what Jeff was saying as well, you know, the one pager is one of the people that impacted me growing up, said to always have an elevator speech in your back pocket because you never know when you're going to get on the elevator and your chief, whatever title is going to be on there. And you need to have that in your back pocket ready to go basically all time. And data is something that most always listen to. Seamus we've let you sit quietly for probably too long in this conversation. Anything to add to what you've heard from Jeff and Cody so far? Yeah so we've heard similar stories like this about staffing issues from basically every customer we talk to. I think COVID was tough on this industry. Nobody wants to put their life at risk necessarily. Right and it's a tough job anyway. You know, and then you couple that with the fact that the wages for retail have come up. And if you're young and you're looking for an entry level position and you have to choose between working at target, where you've got air conditioning or working in decon Wright for the same wage where you might get stabbed with a k-y or something like that. It's tough to recruit people. It's tough to, I think, honestly. Working in the medical field is probably long term a better career decision. But it is tough for young folks to see that, I think. Yeah, I think that's I think that's a really, really good point. And I think just well laid out explaining some of the challenges that we're seeing in this area right now. Everyone that's going to do it for episode one in this series, make sure to tune into the second and third parts of this conversation as well, where we dive in much, much deeper on census. I squared productivity, but you're going to want to tune into those episodes, so make sure to do that. You can subscribe to the podcast on Apple podcasts, Spotify or of course, visit the census website for more and we will see you at episode two.
