Here are Five Red Flags Every Leader Should Watch Out For. In healthcare, time isn’t just money....
Back to school means back to routine. For most families, this means new schedules, new supplies and a reset before the year picks up speed. Perioperative departments should be going through the same reset right now, ahead of the busiest surgical months of the year.
October, November and December consistently rank as the highest-volume months for surgical cases, largely because patients schedule procedures after meeting their annual deductible. July, by contrast, is typically the slowest month. This gap between the slow season and the surge means late summer is the window to catch problems before they become bottlenecks in the fall.
A parent would not send a child back to school without the right supplies. An OR should not start its busiest season without the right equipment, instruments and staffing in place either.
Here are five areas that are worth a close look before volume climbs.
1. Sterilizer Maintenance
Sterilizers running at full capacity during peak season leave little room for downtime. Routine preventive maintenance now, rather than a reactive repair call in October, keeps sterile processing on schedule when case volume is highest.
Where to start: Pull maintenance logs and confirm every sterilizer is current on scheduled service. Verify biological indicator testing is up to date, and confirm a backup or loaner unit is available if a machine goes down mid-season.
2. Tray Optimization
Incomplete or poorly organized trays slow down turnover and frustrate surgical teams. A pre-season review of tray contents and configuration confirms what is supposed to be inside a tray is truly there, and reflects surgeon preferences rather than outdated case card information.
Where to start: Audit a sample of high-use trays against current preference cards. Flag any trays still built around retired instrumentation or techniques no longer in use, and update the documentation before volume picks up.
3. Instrument Inventory
Lost or missing instruments are a common and costly problem, often traced back to trays not reassembled correctly after use. An inventory count before the fall rush identifies gaps early, when there is still time to replace or reallocate instruments rather than discovering a shortage mid-case.
Where to start: Run a full count reconciliation and compare results against the last inventory cycle. Where discrepancies show up repeatedly on the same trays, look at reassembly practices between the OR and sterile processing rather than treating each gap as an isolated loss.
4. Repair Tracking
An instrument flagged for repair or sharpening does no good sitting in a queue. Confirming repair requests have been completed, and instruments are back in circulation, closes a gap often unnoticed until a case is already underway.
Where to start: Pull an open repair ticket report and check turnaround times against vendor commitments. Confirm repaired instruments are returned to their correct trays, not just to the facility, so a completed repair solves the original problem.
5. Continuous Learning
Sterile processing techs and OR staff who receive regular training are better equipped to catch problems before they escalate. A pre-season refresher on standards, from cleaning protocols to tray assembly, reinforces habits before volume makes mistakes more costly.
Where to start: Schedule refresher sessions before the fall surge and review updated instructions for use on equipment that has changed since the last training cycle. Cross training OR and sterile processing staff on each other's expectations helps close the gap between the two departments before it turns into a bigger issue.
How Prepared is Your Department?
This checklist is a starting point. Knowing where the real gaps are takes a closer look.
The OR Efficiency Self-Assessment covers four areas: workflow and throughput, staffing and stability, instruments and equipment, and operational alignment. It takes about 10 minutes and produces a score showing where a department stands before fall volume arrives, not after.
Take the OR Efficiency Self-Assessment
The Value of an Embedded Partner
A pre-season checklist highlights where problems might be forming. Closing those gaps for good typically takes a partner working inside the department day to day, not just a periodic review.
Across a range of case studies spanning different facilities and engagement lengths, hospitals that have been with Surgical Solutions have seen results including:
- A 79% reduction in monthly scope repairs
- $1 million in first-year savings within an endoscopy service line
- A 93% reduction in the unused tray rate
- 112 additional surgical cases completed in year two
These figures reflect outcomes built over the course of ongoing partnerships across a variety of facilities and timelines.
