A recent press release revealed that in a VA Medical Center in Georgia, over four thousand veterans had been exposed to improperly reprocessed medical devices. It seems that staff members at this medical center had not been properly trained in the reprocessing of medical devices. While this may come as a shock, maybe it shouldn't. According to the 2021 NSI National Health Care Retention & RN Staffing Report, in just the last six years, the average US hospital has turned over 90.8% of its workforce.
With that kind of turnover, keeping everyone abreast of all the various and complicated steps for reprocessing is harder than ever. So how can you keep up and prevent the next headline from including your facility's name? There are two really simple steps your facility can take to help manage and get ahead of the ongoing employment crisis in the healthcare industry.
Streamline Processes
When you constantly have new faces in your ranks, one of the best ways to ensure consistency and compliance is to streamline processes as much as possible. For example, it takes at least ten time-consuming and tedious steps to manually reprocess a TEE ultrasound probe. While we can't cut corners to make this process simpler, we can utilize new technology to make the process easier to follow and more time-efficient.
By implementing an automated cleaner and disinfector, like the TEEClean® Automated TEE Probe Cleaner Disinfector, you cut the process down to just seven steps. It may not seem like much, but it really adds up, especially if your facility is a busy one. Instead of having staff members spend their time watching basins of disinfectant, they can just insert probes into the TEEClean, press a few buttons, and walk away. This not only simplifies the work required, but frees staff members up to accomplish other important tasks.
Train More
The best way to ensure new and veteran employees comply with best practices and are up to date on the latest infection prevention practices is to continually train them. Not only will this yield the best results, it is also required by The Joint Commission's HR.01.05.03 standard which states that staff must participate in ongoing education and training. Additionally, documentation must be kept up to date in each employee's file. CS Medical can step in to help meet these guidelines and improve your staff's understanding of the reprocessing procedure in various ways.
CS Medical offers hands-on, in-person training by one of our technicians who will ensure competency of use as well as teaching required preventative maintenance to ensure device readiness. Afterwards, the technician will provide a written training record for all staff in attendance for storage in their files.
Understandably, in-person training events can seem daunting; stopping the work day and focusing on training is just not always an option. Fortunately, CS Medical also provides web-based training which is incredibly flexible. With web-based training, staff members can individually log into the portal any time of the day or night and begin a video training session. Once that's done, they will be prompted to take a quiz and, upon passing, will receive a certificate of competency for storage in their employee file.
Beyond basic competence, it's vital to keep employees up to date on the latest in their field. Encouraging them to seek further education is a great way to keep them engaged and satisfied in their career. Continuing Education (CE) credits are a great way to do this. While some CE credits must be paid for, there are opportunities to earn CE credits for free. CS Medical offers free CE credits with participation in our online sessions.
These are hard times for staff members and leadership alike, but that doesn't mean standards of care need to suffer. By streamlining processes and then ensuring staff members are well trained, facilities can help make these difficult times just a little less stressful.
