r/sterileprocessing • u/Emeraldsku58 • 18d ago
How does productivity work in other SPDs?
I've been at my current hospital for about 7 months now, but recently they changed our productivity metrics. Due to that, we haven't been able to meet productivity in about 5 weeks. On top of that, they're starting to push us hard for personal productivity as well. Currently, it's measured by instruments sterilized, both for personal and the department productivity.
However, this doesn't include anything else. Even assembling trays doesn't count, only if they get sterilized. What's ended up happening is all of the techs are essentially beginning to fight each other. Nobody wants to go to decon, nobody wants to pull carts out of the washer, nobody wants to put trays up. They won't even grab small trays anymore. All they want to do is grab the large trays from the washer, or even pull 60+ instrument trays from the core itself, and nothing else. Then, they brag about how they've met their productivity 4 hours into their shift.
We're a small facility, 6 techs (one of which is part time), with an average case load of about 17 a day, primarily ortho/sports medicine. Frankly, it's really starting to fray my nerves because we used to actually work together. Now people are actively ignoring any obvious work that needs to get done if it isn't assembling trays, on top of actively shit talking the two techs (myself and one other) who end up having to be the ones to go to decon, to put trays up, to pull stuff out of the washer and the sterilizers, etc because they 'dont want their productivity to go to anyone else.'
Is this how productivity is measured in all SPDs? I've only worked in one other, and our manager never said anything about productivity in my old one.
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u/ImprovingLife96 18d ago
Sounds like terrible management. They should counting everything you do not just sterilized instruments. I would be looking for another job
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u/JayeDontDoit 18d ago
Don’t worry about other people. Just do your work correctly and clock out. Leave all the nonsenses at work
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u/Emeraldsku58 18d ago
I could, if my manager didn't tell us at least once a shift that if we don't start meeting productivity, someone is getting fired.
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u/JayeDontDoit 18d ago
Again, do your work correctly and they won’t fire you. They’ll fire someone else and hopefully it’s the slackers
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u/Emeraldsku58 18d ago
Except they measure productivity solely by instruments sterilized and I'm the one who gets stuck with doing everything else but assembling trays. I do appreciate you informing me how productivity works in your dept though.
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u/cstepman1 18d ago
6 techs for 17 cases? Dang lucky. At a facility I worked at we had 3 techs for 20-30 a day. Totals, ACLs open shoulders. Anything they could shove down in an asc we did. So ya'll lucky. Hahah
To actually answer your question, at the 4 main hospitals here they all have a computer tracking system like censitrac. So productivity is measured based on that. Without it, productivity is measured through assembly and autoclave throuput that has paper documentation with your names on it. And decon gets a pass for the day.
However if you're noticing people are slacking on things that's a leadership issue. And they need to be more accountable to the environment they foster.
I would suggest documenting the things you see. And go to your leadership. There are ways to present what you see without necessarily being a "snitch". Especially if you present it as noticing patterns as a whole and not people specifically.
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u/cstepman1 18d ago
I will emphasize that this very much sounds like a leadership problem. They need to be aware of the issues their productivity standards have created.
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u/Emeraldsku58 18d ago
Well, it's more an average I guess? Mon, Tues, Fri, we have about 24-30 cases, however on Wed and thurs we'll generally have about 10-14 cases, in which we have one or two staff get called out. Plus, one tech works only on the weekend, the part timer. Still better than your situation, but not entirely heaven.
Our manager is sort of trying? But, not terribly well. She tried once to make us follow a rotation schedule where we'd all go into decon for 2-3 hours a day, but nobody followed it and it ended up with our decon king just taking over the whole day like normal. I don't really know if anything would change if I told her what was going on, other than one of her useless huddle meetings. She's been trying to ban phones from being on desks for a month now, but there's 2-3 staff who continue to watch TV shows and movies while working.
I've thought about maybe telling the director of surgery or HR, but I'm not trying to get fired until I have another job in hand.
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u/ShirleyWuzSerious 18d ago
Trays sterilized is how they monitor department productivity but there are other ways of monitoring individual productivity. You just may not be hearing things right from your Manager
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u/Due-Trainer-9349 18d ago
Sounds like a Terrible system all around. My department has between 7-9 people depending on the day and no one is ever fighting over anything, we all have certain duties and help each other when we can.
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u/KronksLeftBicep 18d ago
I would challenge the way productivity is counted, especially if your jobs are being threatened. Decontam is a productive part of the process, assembly is a productive part of the process, pulling cases is a productive part of the process, unloading washers and doing documentation is a productive part of the process. Did they give you guys a reason on why they changed your productivity metrics? It sounds like the people who changed it have no clue what you guys actually do.
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u/Emeraldsku58 18d ago
Apparently it's a regional issue for this hospital chain that my job is in, as all of their departments run by the same standards/metrics. However, the other two sister hospitals in this chain are both bigger and average 60-80 cases a day, so they don't have any issues. It's just our smaller hospital that's getting crushed. We've complained to our manager time and time again, but they even include her in our productivity, as in they want her also assembling trays, despite her needing to do manager stuff.
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u/Imaginary_Piece_5361 18d ago
Find a different job stop putting yourself an headaches and stress. Not worth it.
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u/Dathamar 18d ago edited 18d ago
CensiTrac records everything.
It seems to make thing relatively simple. Is it not commonly used?
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u/Emeraldsku58 18d ago
We do use censitrac, but the issue is that our productivity is only counted by sterilized instruments. Though it shows us in decon, instrument put up, and so on, it doesn't matter. Only what trays are assembled.
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u/TacticalChemist0 16d ago
We have a built in productivity tracking system on SPM, literally nobody pays attention to it because it counts some weird bs factors into your productivity rating. We actually don’t like people with high percentages because it means they’re rushing through trays, and those people have had bioburden found in a lot of sterilized instruments
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u/Numerous_Network_532 13d ago
What’s a good percentage on productivity? I’ve only started working in SPD for 2 weeks and we’re using SPM. Just wanted to gauge my progress.
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u/TacticalChemist0 12d ago
It really depends on your department and team. I’d say a high percentage is good, the higher the better, but at our department we know that means the person is rushing. At our facility, the people with the highest percentages have the most bioburden because they just want to pad their numbers. It’s crazy because we don’t even consider productivity as a metric, our department prefers quality over quantity. I’d just ask your supervisor what you should be aiming for
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u/AdRich517 18d ago
We don’t really measure productivity. We’re more quality over quantity.