Peers share their best cost-saving tips
[Editor’s note: In this month’s issue, we share part one of a two-part series on some of the best cost-saving ideas we picked up at this year’s Same-Day Surgery Conference, held June 8-10 in Atlanta. If you’d like to pick up more ideas, don’t miss the repeat conference, to be held Nov. 2-4, 1997, in Pasadena, CA. For more information, contact American Health Consultants, Customer Service, P.O. Box 740060, Atlanta, GA 30374. Telephone: (800) 688-2421. Fax: (800) 284-3291. E-mail: [email protected].]
Do you want to make your staff more cost-conscious? Make cost awareness fun by creating your own "Price is Right" or "Jeopardy!" game, suggests Peggy Schlomer, RN, BSN, OR, Nurse Manager at Campbell County Memorial Hospital in Gillette, WY.
With the "Jeopardy!" game, for example, OR nurses answer five questions in five categories. "It’s fun and very competitive," Schlomer says.
Another way to make your staff more cost- conscious: When a staff person drops a supply item and it can’t be used, throw it in a box designated for such supplies. Bring those supplies to an inservice, and hand the person who dropped the item a product that’s comparable in price, such as eggs or detergent, suggests Vangie Paschall, RN, CNOR, laser endoscopic coordinator of the surgical services division at Promina Gwinnett Health System in Lawrenceville, GA. This one-time effort can provide a strong point about waste, she says.
And here’s a third strategy: Designate one staff person to be on "cost call" each month, suggests Terri Gatton, RN, CNOR, director of surgical services at Columbus (OH) Eye Surgery Center. This person is responsible for monitoring unnecessary waste. For example, this staffer may ask, "You don’t really have to use that piece of equipment, do you? It costs X amount."
Here are 13 more cost-saving ideas from your peers across the country:
1. Use stainless steel serving trays from food service catalogs instead of medical supply soaking trays.
"They are a fraction of the cost," says Angela Marchi, RN, MS, administrative director, business development, Columbia Gulf Coast Medical Center in Panama City, FL.
2. Leak test your scopes every day.
"Big air leaks are expensive repairs," Marchi points out.
3. Use reusable supplies.
Columbia Gulf Coast Hospital saved $6,000 when it went from disposable to reusable basin kits. Previously the hospital added towels to the disposable basin kits because they didn’t have everything the hospital wanted in them.
4. Use per diem/contingent staff.
The Eye Surgery Center saved $3,000 to $7,000 per year by using such staff, Gatton says. Per diem staff also many want to job share. "I have one who works two days, and another one who works three days," she says. With per diem staff, be sure to have a contract and job description that includes your expectations.
5. If you’re building or expanding, network with the construction crew by having drinks with them late Friday afternoons.
"They needed to know I had a personal interest in the quality of their work," Gatton says of the crew that built her facility. She credits this networking as one factor that helped her facility come in on time and under budget by a quarter of a million dollars.
6. Use one vendor.
Gatton saved hundreds of thousands on supplies by using this strategy for major ophthalmic supplies. All same-day surgery programs should be able to use one vendor for a least one category of their supplies, she suggests.
7. Offer to be a research site for your vendors.
Vendors often are anxious to know how their new technology and applications actually work in the marketplace, Gatton says. "They will take off part of the debt you owe them," she says.
8. Implement a no-cost marketing campaign.
Look at your referral base. Invite the schools, nursing homes, primary care providers, vendors, and others to your center for a day. Let your scheduling staffer set up a rotating schedule, Gatton suggests. Let the referral source follow his or her patient through the same-day surgery process, with the patient’s permission.
9. Don’t let anesthesiology control the staffing schedule.
That practice will drive up costs in the thousands due to time lost in turnover, Gatton says. Time studies are effective in determining ways to use your staff time wisely, she suggests.
10. Ensure you have enough instruments to be cost-effective.
"Even an extra five minutes in turnover time per case could add up to several more cases you could be doing per day," Gatton says.
11. Work with your vendors to obtain ear tubes and prostheses on consignment so you don’t tie up your money in supplies that sit on the shelf.
Fairview Health System in Cleveland saved $5,000 to $6,000 a year by making this change, says Abner Cruz, RN, team coordinator.
12. Perform a cost profile of your 10 highest-volume physicians and anesthesiologists.
13. Use frozen air-popped popcorn or green peas instead of ice packs.
These items are lighter, more flexible, and the popcorn retains cold longer, according to Same-Day Surgery Conference participants.
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