Association Monthly Update - November
By Casey Czarnowski
CCSA Region 1 Director
The California Central Service Association enjoyed a successful Fall, bringing quality educational experiences to the Sterile Processing and Infection Prevention professionals and students of California!
The One Day Seminar for Central Service/Sterile Processing Professionals and hands on workshop in San Diego, California was a hit. We served 48 Sterile Processing Professionals and 3 students on topics including reprocessing of robotic instruments, ATP testing, and the relationship between the OR and the SPD. We finished with a hands-on workshop sponsored by Surgical Instrument Service Company, Inc.
Upcoming events for the CCSA include The Conference at John Muir in Walnut Creek, California on January 25th, and one-day seminars in Las Vegas, Nevada and Long Beach, California in March.
Information and registration links for these events can be found at our website: www.ccsa1.com
The CCSA encourages all Sterile Processing professionals to explore the new Education tab on our website www.ccsa1.com where we promote our mission of providing Central Service Professionals with world-class educational offerings throughout California and beyond. The page features school addresses, CCSA and other events, and a clearinghouse of on-line CEU opportunities. Please visit and encourage your network to explore!
As Sterile Processing professionals, we work every day to keep our resilience high, and inspire our colleagues. Recently, one of our members related a story about a new facility that they are in the process of opening.
To promote wayfinding skills in the large new hospital, the department Educator arranged case cart races from the Sterile Processing department in the basement to the OR on the second floor. Technicians who were scheduled to work in the new facility were gathered together, assigned teams of 2, and given scenarios to play out in running closed case carts to rooms in the OR. One such example was:
The sterile field in a spine case was compromised. Bring two case carts swiftly and safely to OR30.
The Technicians then were timed as to their travel time with actual case carts to the designated room and back down the dedicated elevator to the SPD.
The benefits of this exercise were to help Technicians practice time-sensitive travel from the SPD to the OR, acclimate themselves to moving inventory through the space, and assuring them that they knew more than they thought they knew about travel in the large new space. All of the participating Technicians had participated in wayfinding exercises prior to the races.
The feedback from this exercise has proven valuable to SP and OR Management, as it defined time-of-travel between the SPD and the OR, and, through feedback from the SP Technicians, exposed potential difficulties in moving inventory from SPD to the OR.
When opening a new department of facility, let us never forget the value of input from our front-line staff in creating a great workflow that benefits our patients!
For further information about membership in the CCSA, we invite you to contact office@ccsa1.com.
The CCSA is an Affiliated Chapter of the International Association of Healthcare Central Service Materiel Management.