As a company focused on delivering value and increased efficiency to its customers Mölnlycke Health Care were platinum sponsors at the Association for Perioperative Practice (AfPP) 2010. The company also scooped this year’s 'Best Innovation' award for its forward-thinking O.R. Efficiency Partnership Programme.
The Partnership Programme is a tool for identifying potential efficiency savings in perioperative practice and incorporates five key steps designed to streamline operating room (OR) practice. Developed by Professor Michael Greiling (Faculty of Economics, Gelsenkirchen University of Applied Sciences, Germany) using the theory of process analysis and activity-based costing, the Partnership Programme tracks the effects of using Mölnlycke Health Care’s custom procedure trays, ProcedurePak, on efficiency in surgical environments. Research by Professor Greiling and his colleagues (2008) has shown that using custom procedure trays reduces the time required for surgical preparation by around 40%.1
Mölnlycke Health Care held two interactive workshop sessions this year; “The Efficient Operating Theatre” and “It could be you: get to the point of needlestick injuries”.
The first workshop session, “The Efficient Operating Theatre”, outlined how the quantifiable methods used within the O.R. Efficiency Partnership Programme can identify opportunities for efficiency gains that ultimately lead to treating more patients to better care.
Lisa Tierney (theatre matron) spoke of the efficiency gains that Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen hospitals realised, subsequent to the implementation of custom procedure trays. She commented: “Before we had ProcedurePak trays, we performed 154 knee replacement operations in a sixmonth period. With the trays, we were able to perform 226 – an increase of 47%.”2
Mölnlycke Health Care’s second workshop session, “Get to the point of needlestick injuries” included a personal account of a needlestick injury from
Dr Michael G Ashton (retired consultant gastroenterologist) who revealed the shocking figures of a study: 582 of 699 respondents had received a needlestick injury, of which 51% went unreported.3
He strongly advised the use of safety devices to prevent the use of needlestick injuries. Graham Johnson (Specialist Practitioner in Occupational Health Nursing) later outlined the new EU sharps directive and the consequences of non-compliance.
If you would like to know more about Mölnlycke Health Care’s workshop sessions or how Mölnlycke Health Care’s O.R. Efficiency Partnership Programme can assist your hospital in reaching its individual objectives and identify opportunities for efficiency gains, please email; ORefficiency.uk@molnlycke.com
References:
1. Greiling M: A multinational case study to evaluate and quantify timesaving by using custom procedure trays for operating room efficiency. Data presented at European Association of Hospital Managers, Zurich, Switzerland, September 2010.
2. Study performed by the German Institute for Workflow Management in the Health Care Service (IWiG) under the directorship of Professor Dr. rer. oec. Michael Greiling. Molnlycke Health Care data on file: 2009.
3. Makay M et al: Needlestick Injuries among Surgeons in Training. New England Journal of Medicine. 2007;356:2693-9.
