I was the Moderator for this presentation, which was the first public speaking experience for Linda. She was very nervous but did an excellent job.

The Ambulatory Surgery Center has 8 rooms with a volume of 16,000 cases each year. The most common procedures are Ophthalmology and Orthopedics, and flash sterilization was used very frequently.

Linda is the Assistant Nurse Manager and endeavors to be in compliance with the AORN Standards and Recommended Practices. She audited the number of flash cycles per month, and began a project to decrease that number.

The first activity they undertook was to identify which instruments in each set were used on every case and which ones were used just occasionally. The less-used instruments were removed from all sets and packaged separately, which decreased the number of sterilization cycles for these items.

Linda also created an audit tool to identify the number and reason for each flash cycle. The entire flash process – cleaning protocols, cycle time, numbers for each type of flash cycle, and the most common reasons for flashing were included in the study.

This study report was submitted to Linda’s Manager, who shared the information with the Administration. The Ambulatory Surgery Center allocated $70,000 to purchase additional instruments, and additional sets were created for the most common surgical procedures.

The number of flash cycles decreased as a result of having additional inventory, and remains low following completion of the project.