Mercy Health Partners with ReadySet Surgical

Orchestrating surgeries to begin on time with all the right tools sterilized and available for the day’s scheduled procedures can be complicated. So complicated in fact, that inefficiencies in the surgical supply chain account for over $5 billion of waste annually for hospitals in the U.S., according to hospital supply chain consultancy Global Healthcare Exchange (GHX)[1]. Researchers at Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit, MI, have shown that the cost of surgical delays alone can approach $100/minute with the average surgical delay lasting 7.5 minutes[2].

Mercy Health, a Catholic healthcare ministry serving Ohio and Kentucky, announces that it has formed a unique partnership with ReadySet Surgical to streamline the vendor managed surgical supply chain in its own hospitals and co-develop surgical supply chain tools to further operating room efficiency.

“Delays in the operating room affect patients scheduled for surgery and their loved ones and also limit a hospital’s ability to care for unscheduled patients needing emergency surgery,” says John Starcher, Mercy Health President and CEO. “We want to ensure that our operating rooms are working as efficiently as possible to care for the patients we’re expecting as well as those we’re not.”

ReadySet’s Founder and CEO Keerthi V. Kanubaddi, who has worked for 12 years in the medical device industry, witnessed firsthand the issues that the inefficiencies in the vendor-managed surgical supply chain can raise for patients and surgical teams.

“A lack of coordination leading to the unavailability of instruments can mean that a patient who was scheduled for a minimally-invasive procedure may have to undergo an alternative, more invasive procedure instead, which impacts recovery time and can raise the risk of infection,” says Kanubaddi. “I saw it over and over again. In response, I helped create the ReadySet platform to coordinate hospitals and medical device companies for each procedure so that surgeons and their patients have what they need when they need it.”

Every time a doctor schedules a surgery, ReadySet’s Loaner Management Software triggers an automated process to procure the proper instruments and implants. This process provides complete transparency to the surgical team and medical device company.

For the hospital’s sterilization department, ReadySet’s software provides proper sterilization guidelines for all vendor-managed inventory in each surgical tray in an easy access electronic format. This not only allows a hospital’s sterilization department to properly prepare each instrument but it also fulfills an important compliance requirement from the Joint Commission.

In addition, ReadySet helps lower costs associated with surgical equipment loss. The Loaner Management Software captures images of all the items included on surgery trays so it’s easy for the staff to ensure they’ve returned all equipment to avoid incurring pricey penalties.

Mercy Health – Fairfield Hospital has been piloting ReadySet since November with great success.

“Since deploying ReadySet, we’ve had 100% compliance with access to sterilization guidelines and zero lost instruments disagreements,” said Justin Krueger, Chief Operating Officer at Mercy Health – Fairfield Hospital. “ReadySet has also helped the sterilization department plan as far as seven days ahead for how many sterilization trays we will have to prepare on a given day so that we can staff accordingly.”

"Mercy Health's investment in and partnership with ReadySet Surgical is nothing short of a game changer for surgical teams and patients. Mercy Health has prioritized healthcare innovation and this partnership speaks to that commitment,” said Kanubaddi. “ReadySet will help improve the surgical supply chain so that every patient procedure requiring vendor-managed surgical inventory, estimated at more than 10 million surgeries annually, can begin on time, with the correct instruments, implants and sterilization parameters.”

[1]https://www.ghx.com/media/1095/the-current-state-of-the-implantable-device-supply-chain-102012.pdf

[2]http://www.wsusurgery.com/equipment-delays-in-the-operating-room/