OR Night Responsibilities

[Beans007]

I am currently an OR nurse at a level 1 trauma center. Our central sterile department came under new management about a year ago and under the new management their productivity seems to have slowed down significantly. Now, the night time and even occasionally the daylight staff is being required to go to central sterile(with no additional training in their environment) to put up trays at night when we are not doing cases. I am curious if this is something anyone else has ever been required to do? What exactly are the responsibilities of your night staff? Please when responding let me know if you work in an OR that is part of a trauma hospital. This was my first OR job and I'm not sure if it is a normal occurrence in other ORs. The staff where I work is very unhappy about it because when we go to central we are at least twice as productive even though we have no training in their area.

[imanurseintheor]

Hi, what do you mean "put up trays?" I can definitely answer your question but I'm not sure what you mean.

[Rose_Queen, BSN, MSN, RN]

There have been times staff have been sent to sterile processing. They do not run the autoclaves or Sterrad. However, they are given a brief tutorial to the computer system that guides tray components for putting together sets (pretty much 5 minutes) and reminded to use the filters, indicators, and container locks. Level 2 trauma center. Staffing in the sterile processing department has been an issue due to turnover and a change in management.

While your situation certainly isn't unique, it sounds more like a bandaid rather than a solution to the problem.

[Beans007]

We are being required to assemble and wrap the trays to be sterilized

[Beans007]

When you say there have been time staff have been sent, is this a consistent expectation or a temporary solution when your central processing department is short staffed or overwhelmed with cases?

I would agree that this is a bandaid, and I believe that this is why the staff are so frustrated with it. This doesn't seem to be a temporary fix while we try to improve the bigger issues.

We also do not currently have a computer system in central processing which makes this entire situation more difficult. While we do know a lot of the instrumentation our OR has a lot of newer staff tbat are still learning and trays are being assembled with incorrect instrumentation.