Getting SPD Teams to the Table: Why Sterile Processing Deserves a Central Role in Surgical Planning and Operations

Welcome to Consensus, a podcast from Census Technologies. What's going on y'all? It's Daniel Littwin, the voice of B2B, and welcome to another episode of the Consensus Podcast, a Census Podcast. I'm happy to be back in the hot seat here today talking shop on everything sterile processing, sterile processing departments, and of course, the major trends, technologies, and strategies that are leading to SPD success. We're in for a great conversation today that's all about giving more onus, right, to SPD teams in major conversations across healthcare. I'm gonna get more specific here in a minute, but before we dive in, make sure you're heading to our website, census dot com. Again, census, c e n s I s dot com, for more about our solutions and services, how we support sterile processing departments, but more importantly, for more episodes of the Consensus podcast. You can also subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify for previous episodes. And of course, that little ding, the notification when we drop new great thought leadership with our SPD community. Alright, folks. We've got a lot to cover today, so let's dive in. I wanna paint y'all a picture here. Right? The theme of today's episode is getting SPD teams to the table, the metaphorical table here, or quite literally, the table. Right? Let's paint a picture here and get a little more concrete. If you work in sterile processing, you likely know this feeling. Right? Chaos. The new instrument set shows up in your department, but maybe there's a little warning. A renovation is underway. Nobody asked how trays are actually gonna move through that space. Maybe there's a critical case underway, but things are delayed. SPD is left to make it work with tools available, workflows that were never really designed with you, the SPD team in mind. K. Behind the scenes, SPD teams are protecting every patient, every surgeon, every procedure. If you're a longtime listener, if you're in an SPD, right, you know this. Yet when big decisions get made about products, about staffing, construction even, infection prevention strategies, right, The people who clean, assemble, and turn those instruments around are too often missing from conversations, right? And they play an essential role. So our guest today is going to help pull at this thread, right? She's been listening to those voices for years and she's captured them herself in a powerful cover story, which released not too long ago in healthcare purchasing news called Hospital Leaders. It's Time to Give SPD a Seat at the Table. This is mostly a context setter. We're not just talking shop on the article here, but it really covers the scope of today's conversation. Should the SPD, the sterile processing department, have more of a seat at the table around these conversations? And if so, how? How do we facilitate this? How do we get a little bit more collaboration between key departments and key decision makers at a healthcare operation? So today I'm pleased to welcome to our conversation Kara Nadeau. She is senior contributing editor at Healthcare Purchasing News. She's also the founder of KLN Communications. And Kara has spent more than two decades telling healthcare's behind the scenes stories, especially in sterile processing, supply chain, perioperative services, infection prevention, you name it. Right? She'd become an trusted amplifier of SPD voices across the industry. So we're gonna unpack with her today what SPD professionals told her when she asked a simple but loaded question. Right? Where should SPD have a seat at the table but doesn't? Right? Where do those departments not have a seat? How do we fix that? Well, we're digging to all of that here today. What hospital leaders need to hear and how data, technology, and partnerships, and, yes, that includes platforms like Census, right, how they can all help move SPD from out of sight to top of mind and at the center of this key decision making. So let's welcome her to the show. Kara Nadeau, thank you so much for being here. How are you? Great. Thanks. I'm doing great. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Absolutely. Look. Great story. I'm really glad that we're using it as sort of a a lily pad for today's conversation. So I highly encourage, folks listening along at home. Give that whole article a read. There's a lot that we're not gonna be able to really, reflect in just one podcast episode. Give it a read. Check out the voices from, you know, SPD leaders in there. But again, Kara, thank you for writing that great piece and again, using it as an impetus for today's conversation. So Kara, before we dig into the actual meat of the conversation today, for folks who don't know you yet or aren't familiar with your work, could you expand a bit on your work at Healthcare Purchasing News, how you drilled down into this lane of healthcare journalism, and just a little bit more about some of the topics you've covered, how you've become a voice really for this lane, SPD? Yeah, no, definitely. It's funny. I always whenever I speak with anyone in sterile processing, I always preface it with, I'm a writer, I'm not living your world, you know, I'm here to learn from you and to communicate your stories. Yeah, so that's an important thing to point out to begin with. But yeah, started out my career in medical device. So I did medical device public relations. So it was interesting, I came from that sort of world. And then over the years, the past twenty five years, have been a health care and technology writer. And it was thirteen years ago that Chris Russell, who is the former publisher of Health Care Purchasing News, asked me to come on board as a contributor. And I was so honored. I had read the magazine for years. She assigned me the sterile processing beat and I didn't know what sterile processing was. I had no idea. And it ended up being, or it's been such an amazing journey and to speak with folks. And I always thank sterile processing professionals because I couldn't write about this without them being willing to offer their expertise and insights. And how did you find that a lot of the stories that you wanted to tell were coming out of SPDs? Like how did that really become one of your core recurring topics or areas of focus? Did it just kinda happen organically as your career developed in healthcare journalism? I'm just curious about that background. Sure, sure. So yeah, it's interesting. Like I said, I started out in medical device and then over the years worked with a variety of different companies. And my first kind of behind the scenes work was with supply chain because I think about that like sterile processing supply chain. You may not see these folks doing all this critical work and you see it a lot more now that the pandemic has happened with the supply chain side. But you know, I think it was interesting for me, I always love to learn. And, you know, I was writing about the health care supply chain for a while. And like I said, I took on the role of health care purchasing news. And I was like, oh, okay, this is really interesting. What exactly is sterile processing? And I have to say every day I'm learning something new. Still, after thirteen years about writing for about sterile processing, it's just always new learnings as the industry progresses and shifts. Well, leads us neatly into the core focus of our conversation, which is really drawing inspiration from your most recent article on bringing SPDs to the table, right? Getting them to the center of a lot of key decision making that happens at a hospital or a health care setting where they do operate, but often the stuff that gets in the way of them doing their job well is, you know, not brought to their intention until it's a little too late. Right? Yeah. So we're gonna pull at a few of these different threads. Let's just start general here. In your recent call out to the SPD community, you asked where should SPD professionals have a seat at the table, right, but maybe currently don't have that seat? What kind of responses did you receive? What were the overwhelming perspectives from the pros that you sat down knew this was gonna be a good one. Just speaking with store processing professionals and hearing about this for years. It's like all these important decisions where they're not necessarily being brought to the table on. So I was very excited to do this article. And the response was tremendous. And I was not surprised in that given my years of speaking with sterile processing professionals. And really folks reach out to me with all different areas, which I know we're going to jump into a bit. But everything from compensation to supply chain to case planning. Sterile processing touches so many different areas of healthcare and patient care that they really do need to be involved more than just within the walls of their departments. Let's expand on a few of those. You mentioned it earlier. It's another one of your areas of focus. Right? But supply chain. So purchasing decisions and supply chain involvement. Naturally, because it's on this list, that means that folks you spoke to said, well, we don't have enough of a seat at the table on those decisions. Can you get a little bit more granular? Like, what kinds of decisions are they not being brought into, and how is that impacting their work? And where would they like to have more of a say and more input on said purchasing or supply chain decisions? Sure. So let's put it this way. Let's say a hospital is evaluating a certain instrument device, whatever it is. And everyone's kind of like, yeah, this is great. The surgeons love it. Value analysis has looked at it. It shows up at the hospital and sterile processing doesn't have the equipment to process it. They don't have the right mode of sterilization. They don't have the staffing to add on additional instruments. I mean, it's just wild to me that there are cases where something will show up like that. I think that's been changing. I think more hospitals have been realizing, okay, we need to get folks involved in sterile processing on this because they're the ones who are going to be handling this and making it safe and effective for patients. But that was definitely a topic that came up again. It's just not having that seat the table from the very beginning to say, we have what we need to reprocess this instrument or device. Now, how about on the, like, this one is interesting to me, design and construction decisions. This one's fun. You know, you wouldn't necessarily think, alright, we're building a new wing. Let's talk to the SPD team. Right? Yeah. But clearly, sterile processing departments are having to walk the length of their entire hospital. Often they have to facilitate the transfer of key tools to different ORs. So if there's a huge wing blocked off, that might impact their work. So it is curious to pull up that thread. Could you expand on what you heard from the folks you spoke to? Sure. So, as you know, there are so many sterile processes departments in the US that would love to be in a situation where they're being redesigned or upgraded or that sort of thing. And I think about it this way, like if you were a surgical suite, if you were the OR, and someone was redesigning, building a new surgical suite for you or redesigning what you have, you would be involved in that, right? Like the surgeons would be involved, the OR team would be involved. What I hear is that some of these sterile processing departments and hospitals, they make these plans to redesign or rebuild an SPD, and they don't consult with the SPD leaders and team, which just makes no sense. I mean, then you get to the point, let's say they don't from the beginning and the design's been put together and maybe even equipment's been ordered. And then finally they consult with an SPD leader and it's like, wait a minute, this workflow is completely wrong. This isn't the right place for this. This isn't safe. This isn't efficient. So that was a big message from sterile processing professionals that they need to be involved from the very beginning on decisions like that. The last theme I wanna pull out from the article before we continue down this road, is case planning and OR coordination. This was another area, that SPD teams mentioned they'd like to have more of a say in. This seems like a pretty foundational strategic area where SPD teams should have a seat at the table. I guess I'm a bit surprised that they don't. Could you expand on this dynamic a little bit and what you heard from, the SPDs that you spoke to? Sure. Yeah, this is a shocker to me too, because if you think about it, the SPD and the surgical suite, the OR team, I mean, need to be in coordination. The surgical team can't do procedures without instruments. So they really need to sync up, of course, with their sterile processing department. But, it's funny, Rebecca Alvino, I'm going to make sure I get her title right, System Director for Hospital Epidemiology and Infection Prevention at UC Davis. She provided a quote that really, I think, hits home with this. And she said, you have an ortho doc that wants two rooms of arthroplasties one to two days a week, have a conversation first with the SBD to ensure they have the instrumentation. I mean, that sounds crazy. Someone coming on board, a new surgeon who wants to do a different type of procedure and not consulting first with the sterile processing department to ensure they even have the instruments to be able to reprocess. And if you think about it, having enough inventory, even if it's still a procedure that is typically done at that facility, they need to make sure that there's enough inventories that things can be turned around in time for the next case. So it really is a critical component to have that communication about case planning, instrumentation. I mean, think just with case planning, I mean, there's got to be coordination there to ensure that the sterile processing team, it goes back to I think a lot of times I've been told by sterile processing professionals that surgeons don't always understand all the steps that need to be taken to adhere to an IFU. So all sterile processing professionals say, the surgeon wants this turned around in twenty minutes. Well, that's not going to happen because this takes X amount of time and this takes X amount of time. And if we're going to do it right, it's gotta be done right and it's gonna take this length of time. So I think sometimes there's some miscommunication there. And so again, that's really a critical thing that SPDs and ORs need to sync up on. Yeah, definitely. So I think all of this reveals more than just, here's where SPDs need to have a seat at the table, but it speaks to the nuances of interdepartmental relations, you know, how SPD teams are even viewed in the grand scheme of health care operations. What are your thoughts there? I mean, what, like, what do you think these responses tell us about how SPD teams are viewed or if we wanna give a value judgment in the question, you know, somewhat undervalued. Right? Sure. Within the health care system, I guess, like, what speaks louder here? What kind threads can we connect across all these layers where they say, man, I wish I had more of a seat at the table here? Yeah. And I hate to be all, like, bad news here because there's so many, like, so many teams that I speak with who have such great relationships, SPD teams with their OR teams, with their infection prevention teams, there's so much of that. And every year that I write about this, there's so much more, but I think there's also so much more work to be done. So I think you can have a sterile processing department in one health system where everything runs smoothly, there's coordination, there's collaboration, great. And then another organization that doesn't have that. Because like you said, the sterile processing department, perhaps they're undervalued, they're not visible. The surgical team or other executives don't understand the complexity of their work. So I think it really does vary from one facility to the next. Now let's expand then on how to fix this really, like where to start. Now, there's probably a lot of different nuances here. Like you said, this is hard to generalize because, you know, one great SPD experience could be paralleled with, you know, a lot of dysfunction even within, like, the same city, for example, across two health care systems. So this is very much something to you know, if you're listening along and you feel like, oh, this relates to me, you know, really drill down to your specific nuances and challenges. But if we did have to generalize a little bit for the sake of discussion here, you've had a front row seat to these discussions for years. You often resurface the same questions, you know, year after year to just check-in, get a pulse check on where this trend is at. Based on everything you've heard, especially from this last article, what would you say needs to change in today's context for SPD professionals to gain more visibility and more influence? Like, whose responsibility is it to bring them to the table? Is it theirs? Is it someone else's? Like, where do we start there? Yeah, that's a complex question. But I'll tell you the organizations where I see the greatest amount of success when it comes to SPD coming to the table, and being valued at the table, or organizations where they have other internal champions. So let's say it's the head of periope, or even other, like I said, infection prevention. Feel like when sterile processing has allies in other departments, that's so critical. And it's interesting, year we do the processing department of the year awards for healthcare purchasing news. And over the years, more and more, I'm seeing head of surgical services submit nominations, head of infection prevention. So I'm seeing more that other departments and other stakeholders within health care organizations are seeing the value of their sterile processing departments and want to promote that. So that's definitely a step in the right direction. A lot of these changes, like just establishing, let's say, a champion internally, I can take some slow burn action. You know, you gotta build trust. You gotta actually build a dynamic of cross departmental collaboration. I'm curious if you've seen any little small changes, right? Something that a hospital can execute on rather quickly that will bring SPD into more conversations in a meaningful way. Any little hacks, tips or tricks that you've discovered in your conversations and writings? Definitely. So I think one of the most successful things I've heard is the sterile processing department inviting whoever the stakeholder may be. Would say most organizations, you should hope they have a close relationship with infection prevention. But let's say it's surgical services, let's say it's a CEO, a CFO of a health system or hospital, having them come to the department. I mean, that seems to be like, gold right there. I've heard some organizations where they have like a sterile processing open house, or other ones or, you know, they invite an executive to come have a tour. And, you know, what I've heard is, you know, they'll get someone into the department and it's like a light bulb goes off Cause they see the complexity and they see the steps that need to be taken and they see everything that goes on. It's like, oh, oh, like this is what happens behind the scenes. This is why I'm not getting my surgical tray back in fifteen minutes. I feel like that's been a really, really strong way to get that awareness and sort of generate those internal champions. Hey, Kara, I'm glad you brought up the leadership angle. Right? The first answer you gave is one that is critical, and it's very bottom up. Right? SPDs should be seeking to build relationships. You know, the the team lead, the director of that department should be seeking to develop inroads with and a healthy collaborative relationship with, like, the head of the perioperative department, like you mentioned. Right? But then there's also the top down dynamic. You do need the administrator of that health care system to understand the nuances of their departments. And sometimes you don't feel it until you're there and you're watching, oh, I see that is an inefficiency, or I see what they mean when they say X, Y, or Z isn't really attuned to the realities of SPD operations. Sure. You know, what's your recommendation for her for getting to that point? Is this kind of a call to action to healthcare leaders to to take that initiative if you're an administrator to get down into the weeds and really study the nuances of your SPD team? It is because the last thing any hospital leader wants is for them to be an issue because their SPD is understaffed, underequipped, not being able to follow proper protocols because of, let's say, pressure from the surgical team. Nobody wants to end up in the newspaper because of an infection, right? Nobody wants to. Sean Flynn shared this example in my article about this twenty million dollars lawsuit that occurred because of pressure from a surgical team that was put on the sterile processing team. It's a long story. You'll to read the story in the article, but in the end, processes weren't followed. The expertise of sterile processing was not followed and it ended up in this twenty million dollars lawsuit and a loss of an athlete's career. Nobody wants to be in that situation. So I hate to put it in a money sort of terms, but even think about it like if you're a hospital leader, would you want to be having surgery in a facility or a family member having surgery in a facility where the SPD is understaffed, under equipped, under pressure. No, you don't. So I mean, you bring it down to a human level, yeah, I guess it is a call to action. It's like if you think about these things, you wouldn't want to be in that situation. You wouldn't want your loved one to be in that situation. You want your sterile processing team to have what they need and be valued. Such a good point. Like place yourself in the shoes of the patient. Don't choose to respond after there's an issue or a crisis. Exactly. Listen to the warning signs. Listen to the yellow flags. Like, hey. Yep. Bring us to the table because we're seeing some issues here that we really should shore up. Like, don't let that become something worse than it is when it's just a pain point instead of a crisis. Right? Yeah. Exactly. Love that. Yeah. So I want to tease out, you know, not to reveal all your reporting before it goes live, but I know that you're coming up with a sort of a follow-up article to this one that released in October that is pulling on the thread that runs underneath all of these pain points, which is data. Right? Yeah. What SPDs can see, what they can't, who else in the organization has access to those insights. And you're working on your next piece for the January issue. Is that correct on this front? That will be January. January. Yeah. Perfect. And this is gonna be focused on what data SPD need but still don't have to operate efficiently and effectively and smoothly even under pressure. Before we talk about that, and again, I won't reveal all of the bells and whistles because we do want people to read the article. Yeah. But what are you hearing from SPD leaders about the data gaps? Right? How does this reinforce some of these other areas of decision making that we've already established need some more attention and SPDs need to be brought to the table for? Sure. So I always find it interesting when I'm writing articles and I'm doing research and I'm conducting interviews, it always seems like things build on themselves. The SPD at the table conversation, I'm speaking with folks and they're saying, and you know what, we don't have the data that we need. We don't have the analytics that we need. So that kind of stemmed out of that. I mean, heard a lot of that anyway, but there was definitely requests from the sterile processing professionals that I interviewed for the most recent article before the one in January around data. So, one of the big points that came up is, how do you measure productivity? Folks do things in all different ways. And that's, again, I won't get into the details of that because we'll be talking about that in the story. But just having data that makes sense and consistent data and data that you can base analytics on where you have useful analytics. I mean, that's huge, And that's something that sterile processing departments certainly need. And you think about it from a justification perspective. So let's say a sterile processing team is completely overwhelmed. You know, they've they don't have enough staff or they don't have enough their equipment is outdated. It can't handle the volume of trays coming in. How do they prove to the powers that be that they need more staff equipment, etcetera? Unless they have that hard data to show some metrics to show this is what's happening. This is what we're processing. This is the number of, just kind of all those metrics to show, to quantify what the issues are. Yeah. I wanted to tease this out too because from our side at Census, we're constantly hearing that when SPDs have actionable data, whether it's on tray readiness, delays, repair trends, on time delivery, even case by case performance, really granular stuff, it completely changes the conversation with OR leaders and executives. Right? Because True. Because SPD teams can come to the table with you know, they're already informed not just on their operations, but on the cascading effect of their operations. Yeah. How have you found that SPD teams that are backed with data, like, can advocate for themselves a little more and and get that seat at the table? Have you seen that kind of connection or heard that from any of the folks you've interviewed? That is so true. You bring up a really good point. Because what I hear is, you know, the OR will not to bash the OR, because I have a lot of great perioperative surgical contacts out there, but I'm communicating what I'm hearing. So, you know, we'll let's say it's an organization where the sterile processing department, the OR saying to them, well, your trays are always wrong. There's always a defect. There's always this, there's always that. To be able to be a sterile processing department to have that data and be able to say, okay, let's take a look at tray errors in the past few months. But let's look at the realities and the other way around too. And when I speak with sterile processing leaders, they fully admit they're like the OR, if we're tracking all of this, then the OR can actually say, okay, we've noticed that there's an issue with this tray. Or maybe it's able to boil it down to, oh, it's been this technician who's been processing these trays. Maybe they need some additional education. So it really works both ways, but it gives that information, that granular information to be able to say, this is where we're having issues, this is what we need to address. So let that be another call to action too, and not to overly plug census here, but it is critical for sterile processing departments to have that kind of data, not just to run a more efficient department, but, again, to get at the core of the theme of today's episode, right, to get a seat at the table. There are some things where other players in the ecosystem need to, you know, turn their attention back to the SPD to understand their role and bring them to the table. But equally, SPD teams should be advocating with, you know, the best data available to the best of their ability to be involved in those decision making conversations. And being backed with good data, knowing all the nuances of what is or isn't working in your operation with hard numbers will obviously make for a stronger case, of course. Yeah, definitely. And I think the January article is gonna be good. I'm wrapping it up and I've got a lot of great insights from a lot of great experts. So I'm excited about that one. Exciting stuff. And, you know, just a little hype for you. I I I love how detailed you get with surfacing real on the ground perspectives in your articles. I love that as I was prepping for today's conversation, looking over all the conversations on your October article. So I'm very much looking forward to seeing what you cook up here in January. Very cool. Yes. Alright. So I think we've covered quite a bit here. We're gonna go ahead and start to wrap up and drill down a bit. To close us out, Kara, what's one actionable item that you hope our listeners today walk away with from this episode? Whether they're in SPD or they're in a department that intersects with SPD. Maybe their leadership, maybe their perioperative, regardless. What would you say? So one of the things I go back to, it's interesting, we were preparing for this interview and talking and the idea of awareness versus action. And I feel like a lot of it does start with awareness. So being able to, for sterile processing professionals to participate in a podcast like this, to write an article or be in an interview for healthcare purchasing news, to be involved in a blog post. I think sterile processing professionals do an amazing job getting their voice out there. And again, year that I read about this, I see this more and more and more. And I think that's great. And I think it's communicating to health care stakeholders, but I think it's also communicating to the broader world. Like I'll be out and someone will ask, oh, what do you write about? And I'll say sterile processing. They're like, what's that? And I'll tell them and they're like, oh, we had no idea that went on. So I think, you know, raising that awareness both inside and outside of healthcare, think is a good step. You know, when it comes to action, I think, you know, again, sterile processing teams sharing their successes. So using data, being able to demonstrate we were able to accomplish this. Like the health care purchasing news, sterile processing department of the year. We always showcase someone or an organization that has done these amazing things. They've reduced tray defects. They've improved efficiency. And having data to back that up is something that we always look for. So I think it's a combination of that too, of share your successes. And like I always say, I think there's sterile processing professionals out there who may want to share their story and feel like, well, maybe it's not. Go ahead, reach out. Because I feel like everyone's story is important. Because everyone's like we discussed earlier, there's so much variability across organizations. I think as much as sterile processing professionals can share about their situations, it's going to resonate with someone else. Totally agree. And like we see, one story may feel like one story in a big bucket, but then you combine that with ten, twenty, a hundred stories. Now you're surfacing a trend, and you're a part of helping surface a trend. So SPD teams, this is as much an informative podcast as it is a call to action to be vocal, advocate for yourselves, and make sure that you are taking advantage of the resources in front of you, whether that's connections internally or being featured in a Karenado story, right, to help get that narrative across to the larger community because Yeah. It is important. It is important. So, Kara, thank you so much for your time today. If folks want to read your article, they wanna maybe get in touch, be a sort in a future story or just pick your brain, learn more from you. How can they get in touch? I would say probably LinkedIn is easiest. I'm very active on LinkedIn. So shoot me a message and from there we'll figure out next steps, share email addresses, whatever. But that's probably a good place to start. Awesome. And then where can they find your articles? Are they publicly available? They are. So it's hpnonline dot com. And I also write for healthcare. I forgot to mention this earlier. I write for their sister publication, Medical Laboratory Observer as well, which is outside of sterile processing, but I'll throw it out there. Nice. Love it. Yeah. Thank you again, Kara. Again, folks, we've been chatting with Kara Nadeau, senior contributing editor at Healthcare Purchasing News and founder of KLN Communications. Kara, I'm looking forward to that January article hopefully bringing you back on the show here soon. Hey, sounds good. That's great. Thank you so much. And thank you everyone for tuning into today's episode. Again, folks, I'm gonna leave you with some calls to action here. Okay? If you're listening and you work in SPD, supply chain, the OR, even C suite, I encourage you to do two things. One, read Cara's article. Again, hospital leaders, it's time to give SPD a seat at the table. That's the title. It's in health care purchasing news. We'll have a link in the show notes as well. Second, it's a call to action episode. Take a look at where SPD is not in the room. Right? Choose a meeting. Choose a committee. Choose a project where you can bring them in. Or if you are part of the SPD team, right, take that opportunity to vocalize. Right? Bring those challenges or goals for the team to the table, be bold, and help move the needle. And folks, make sure that you're subscribing to the consensus podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify for more conversations like these, more thought leadership on SPD, and everything in between. You should also head to our website, census dot com, c e n s I s dot com, for more information, of course, on our podcast, other resources, and thought leadership, but also for more information on our solutions and services and how we can help support your sterile processing department. I'm your host, Daniel Littwin, the voice of b two b. We'll catch you on the next episode of the consensus podcast.