Realizing the Potential of ReprocessingCalculate Creative Solutions For Financial and Environmental Performance

Reprocessing can positively impact a hospital’s bottom line and drastically minimize its environmental footprint. However, a facility’s true savings and waste reduction potential takes time to achieve. That means it’s not uncommon for the results to vary substantially from hospital to hospital – even between facilities of the same size. For instance, one hospital may realize $600,000 in annual savings and reduce waste by 9,000 pounds; whereas another hospital the same size may only realize $20,000 in annual savings and reduce waste by 70 pounds. What’s behind the difference?

The key to realizing the ultimate potential of reprocessing lies in program implementation and engagement. It may seem simple, but adhering to the following, proven best practices can make all the difference in a hospital’s ability to reach its true savings and waste reduction potential.

• Executive support and engagement. It must come from the top. A successful reprocessing program requires the full support of hospital administration. Executives set the tone regarding the importance of reprocessing for their hospital.

• Staff buy-in and cultural preparedness. It’s important to develop a compre-hensive education plan for all staff involved in the reprocessing program, including surgeons, nurses and operating room (OR) staff. Take time to answer questions and discuss the science behind reprocessing. The key to changing their attitudes and behaviors about device usage is helping them understand both the financial and environmental impact of reprocessing and what that means to them personally.

• Program accountability. Hold staff accountable for reaching a facility’s cost avoidance and waste reduction goals. Paint a clear picture of how reprocessing can impact a hospital’s financial performance and, ultimately, their compensation.

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Hospitals Boost Sustainability Efforts, Reduce Environmental ImpactWith a large part of the U.S. carbon footprint coming from the healthcare industry, Practice Greenhealth’s Greening the OR Initiative is gaining momentum. Hospitals across the na-tion increasingly understand their impact on the environment and are adopting solutions to make positive changes. Many hospitals are forming Green teams and getting senior leader-ship involved to help shift how hospital staff thinks about the environmental impact of their daily decisions.

Partnering with Ascent enables hospitals to simultaneously re-ducing their environmental impact and save financial resources to be redirected towards other important initiatives. Currently, more then 50% of US hospitals are using a reprocessing pro-gram, and in 2009 Ascent helped its healthcare partners reduce medical waste by more than 5 million pounds. (Pyrek, “Hospitals Boost Sustainability Efforts, Reduce Environmental Impact”, Infection Control Today, November 2010). To read the full article, please visit:http://www.infectioncontroltoday.com

It’s Easy (On Your Budget) Being GreenGoing green doesn’t have to be expensive and tedious task. There are several ways to reduce your facility’s environmental footprint that will produce long-term costs savings. Reprocessing single-use devices is listed as one of six strategies hospitals can adapt that will lessen environmental impact and reduce supply expenses.

Stacy Howard of Sisters of Mercy Health System discusses how reprocessing of single-use devices helped Mercy realize more than $1 million in savings and divert 40,000 pounds of medical waste over the past year. Medical device reprocessing and remanufacturing is a simple solution to cut costs, reduce your environmental footprint, and make your healthcare facility more sustainable. (Tsikitas, “It’s Easy (on your budget) Be-ing Green”, Outpatient Surgery Magazine, November 2010) To read the full article, please visit:http://e-ditionsbyfry.com/Olive.ODE/OSM/

Ground Breaking Supply Chain SolutionsAs the pressure to contain costs and streamline supply chains increases, healthcare facilities are moving to standardized operations to better control their inventory systems and save financial resources.

As the leader in delivering healthcare resource sustainability, Ascent is committed to aligning with their hospital partner’s fiscal needs and therefore has partnered with Global Health-care Exchange (GHX), aligned with Global Location Numbers (GLN) and adopted GS1 global supply chain standards. GHX is an Internet-based trading exchange where providers, sup-pliers, distributors and group purchasing organizations (GPOs) collaborate to enhance the business performance of health-care facilities.

Through electronic ordering via GHX, many of Ascent’s hospital partners will experience better fiscal health because they are able to order more products through Ascent, reducing pur-chases from original equipment manufacturers. With the implementation of GS1, global standards and solutions have been developed to improve the efficiency and visibility of supply and demand chains across multiple sectors: products, assets, services and locations.

The success of GS1 lies in utilizing GLNs, unique standardized identification numbers that improve traceability, order ability, invoice supervision and inventory management capabilities. Ascent’s integration with GLNs, GS1 and GHX merges what use to be several, time-consuming inventory systems into one seamless operation.

Ascent is the first and only reprocessing provider to adopt GLN, GS1 and GHX standards. “This is an exciting time”, said Will Probst, Ascent’s Senior Director of Supply Chain Services. “Ascent is proud to be one of the first companies in compliance with the standards, and we look forward to supporting custom-ers who are also working toward that goal.”

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Mountain Vista Medical CenterReprocessing Success from the Beginning Many members of the Mountain Vista Medical Center [Mountain Vista] team had experience with reprocessing from their previous facilities, and they knew first-hand the value and savings it can bring to a hospital. Therefore, once the hospital opened in 2007, it was an easy decision to partner with Ascent and get their reprocessing program up and running immediately.

Mountain Vista recorded their first month of savings in October 2007, just over $2,000 and 115 pounds of waste deferred away from local landfills, and the savings have been growing ever since. In 2010, Mountain Vista’s savings have multiplied to more than $543,000 and 8,000+ pounds of waste deferred. “These savings are positive for the environment, and make it possible for us to buy more equipment and reinvest in patient care. We need to make the most of every chance to maximize this program, and Ascent partners with us to make that hap-pen,” says Tony Marinello, Chief Executive Officer.

Up and Running From Day OneTammy Hall, director, Cardiovascular Services, played a significant role in getting reprocessing started, in the EP/Cath Lab. Hall found that because many of the staff and physicians were al-ready familiar with reprocessing, they were engaged and sup-portive of the program from the beginning. In fact, Himanshu Shukla, M.D., one of the key EP physicians on the medical staff at Mountain Vista, spoke favorably of Ascent devices and immediately started using them in cases. This led to the use of reprocessed devices becoming a standard of care for this de-partment. “We knew that the quality of the Ascent devices were just as good, if not better, than the original devices, and that made the staff feel comfortable about using them,” said Hall.

Shortly following the program’s rollout in the EP/Cath Lab, Mountain Vista and Ascent implemented reprocessing into their operating rooms. Noelle Pereira, director, Surgical Services, credits the attention to the details as the reason their department was able to generate substantial savings numbers so quickly.

“Switching out our large red sharps bins for smaller ones to ensure that we are collecting as many devices as we can, working with our buyer to adjust our par levels and purchasing practices to buy Ascent products first, identifying informal leaders among the OR staff and getting their support early in the process . . . these are just a few things that we did to send the message, ‘We are doing [reprocessing],’ and everyone needed to use the Ascent devices.” Pereira admits that there were a few staff members who were hesitant about reprocessed devices, but she and the Ascent team continued to conduct in-services and educate the staff that reprocessed/remanufactured devices are safe, and are used in hospitals across the country.

The Value of Executive SupportBoth Pereira and Hall credit Mountain Vista’s executive leader-ship support as a driving force in their reprocessing program’s success. Patty Holden, Chief Operating Officer, believes, “Our staff sees this program as a win-win for us. We are being good to the environment, and managing our financial resources wisely.” The leadership team offers continuous assistance by providing current usage data for comprehensive savings analy-ses, and by meeting with surgeons, as needed, to address their concerns about reprocessing.

Month over month, Mountain Vista’s reprocessing savings continue to trend in a positive direction. This success is the result of the strong engagement of the executive leadership team, along with Pereira and Hall, meeting with Ascent on a quarterly basis to track progress, and identify new opportuni-ties for savings. When asked where he sees Mountain Vista’s reprocessing program in the future, Marinello replied, “We want to stay on top with our savings, so we will continue to bring in more reprocessed devices as they become available. We have a great relationship with our Ascent team, and are excited about seeing the savings continue to grow.”

These savings are positive for the environment, and make it possible for us to buy more equipment and reinvest in patient care. We need to make the most of every chance to maximize this program, and Ascent partners with us to make that happen.

Our purpose: Partnering with healthcare providers in

fulfilling their mission of caring for patients, by providing reliable

value through exceptional service, uncompromising quality and

significant cost savings.

• Collection and purchasing compliance. This means conducting a close examination of inven-tory logistics such as ordering, receiving and stocking devices to ensure that the hospital is pur-chasing reprocessed medical devices over their single-use counterparts when they are available. It also means you must educate and remind staff to put devices into the reprocessing collection bins after use.

• Tracking and reporting frequency. Keep re-processing top of mind with staff by tracking the program’s progress and providing regular updates on the impact the program is making.

This begs the question: when best practices are followed, what is the ultimate potential of reprocessing? To shed light on the matter, Ascent developed an online calculator that quantifies

the cost savings and waste reduction potential of reprocessing. Available at www.ascenths.com, the tool shows annual savings and waste diversion fig-ures based on the number of staffed beds and the total number of repro-

cessing programs implemented hospital-wide. For example, a hos-pital with 250 beds that implements a reprocessing program in the OR and EP lab could save as much as one million dollars and divert roughly eight thousand pounds of waste from landfills each year if it follows best practices for reprocessing.

Hospitals that are already implementing reprocessing programs can utilize the calculator to uncover additional savings. For a hospital that is only reprocessing in the OR, for example, the calculator can estimate how much more could be saved if the program were expanded to include the EP lab, non-invasive devices, or open/unused or expired devices.

Savings and waste estimates provided by the calculator are based on averages achieved by actual Ascent reprocessing customers that are following best practices. Savings typically increase each year as reprocessing is embraced as a cornerstone to supply chain strategy. Ascent not only knows what it takes, but also how to help hospitals increase engagement in reprocessing.

As hospitals are looking for creative solutions to cut costs and reduce their environmental footprint, the Ascent calculator offers tangible data that can be used to make an incredible impact on financial and environmental performance. Some hospitals may be surprised to find that they could be getting more out of their cur-rent program. Hospitals can use the tool to motivate staff and discuss ways to improve supply chain operations, get more out of reprocessing and enable more significant resource diversion to support quality care.

To learn more about the cost savings potential of reprocessing, visit www.ascenths.com.

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