orm_november-2023 - 30

Technology
A day in the life of a hospital coordinator
A day in the life of a hospital/facility coordinator
is filled with the coordination of
multiple responsibilities while working with
a multidisciplinary team. " Basically, the
coordinator makes it all work, " says June
Hill, BSN, RN, CNOR, clinical director of
robotics, Inova Health System..
Facilitate staffing. The first thing a robotics
coordinator does is to see if staffing is
appropriate for the different procedures
and adjusts it if need be.
Communicate with preoperative holding.
Communication with the preoperative holding
area for on-time starts is very important
because patients come in late, surgeons
come in late, and then everyone gets into
the room late. " It's a snowball effect, " says
Hill, adding that " we put processes in place
to make sure everyone knew and everyone
was on board with being in the room at
7:30 am. " When she was a facility coordinator,
Hill says she would go to the preoperative
holding area and communicate with
them that unless someone from the room
calls, the patient is expected to be in the
room at 7:30 am.
Make sure rooms are set up appropriately.
The coordinator ensures that the da
Vinci robot is in the right place, all of the
needed supplies are in the room, and the
correct table and OR bed are there.
Helps with set up, room turnover. The coordinator
helping with room set up and turnover
can really expedite efficiency, says Hill.
Maintains inventory of supplies. It is immembers
participate is very helpful, "
she says.
Communication is key
Coordinators are the biggest influence
on the culture of robotics teams, and
that is influenced by communication,
says Amanda Bailey, senior Genesis
consultant, Intuitive Surgical, Inc.
One way to standardize and filter
communication to key people is to start
each day with room rounds and a check
30
OR Manager | Nov/Dec 2023
portant that the coordinator checks to make
sure there are enough instruments and supplies
available. " I always liked to put my
eyes on whether there were enough supplies
for all the cases, if there were enough instruments,
and if they could be processed fast
enough for all the cases, " she says.
Coordinates with central sterile for instrument
availability. " This is huge because
central sterile has a thankless job; it's a lot
of work to turn over these robotics instruments
and endoscopes, " says Hill. She
says that as hospital coordinator she used
to go into central sterile with a list of cases
scheduled for the next day and ask the
central sterile personnel how she could
help coordinate the instruments and their
turn over for the cases. Hill also used to
bring each central supply staff member in
to observe surgery so they could see how
the instruments were used. " The staff and
surgeons all appreciated that, " she says.
Provides support for surgeons, staff. Hill
says she used to walk out with the surgeons
when they were done with the procedure
to find out if everything went okay and
if there was anything they needed. Most
would say everything is fine but sometimes
they would make one or two comments
that would help improve the process.
Makes it all work. Robotics coordinators
are different from any other service line
coordinators because they have to know all
of the different services and all the different
procedures the robots are used in.
in with the charge nurse and leadership
in the sterile processing department
(SPD) and materials management, and
then end each day with next day readiness
rounds, she says.
Bailey notes that when she was a
robotics coordinator those people she
checked in with each morning were her
" best friends, " and she encourages other
coordinators to build such relationships.
Over time, Bailey says, she found that
the typical pieces of communication that
needed to go from her
to the team or the team
to her fell into four categories-supplies,
staff,
preference cards, and
other.
Supplies:
* Instruments-missing,
broken, or reprocessing
issues
* Low or missing in-room or core supply
stock
* Surgeon and instruments and accessories
requests
* Case carts-incomplete vs overloaded
* Quick SPD turnover requests.
Staff:
* Staff complaints/concerns
* Understaffed or misaligned staff
* Plan for breaks, lunches, leave early,
3 pm relief
* Requests for on-call staff support
* Messages for the board runner.
Preference cards:
* Incorrect card pulled for procedure
* Preference card updates needed.
Other:
* Room layout vs procedure challenges
* Equipment needed for upcoming cases
* Robot technical issues
* Requests for turnover and anesthesia
support teams.
" All of these things are one-off
pieces of communication that, if we
standardize the way they are filtered to
the right people, can create a lot of efficiencies
and still have teams feel like
their needs are being heard and can be
met, " says Bailey. ORM
-Judith M. Mathias, MA, BS, RN, was
the clinical editor of OR Manager and
previously the clinical editor of the
AORN Journal.
This article is based on the webinar, The Importance
of Standardization through Efficiency
Measures for a Sustainable Robotics Program,
which was sponsored by Intuitive Surgical and is
available on the AORN website at https://aorn.
org/events/live-webinars/intuitive.
www.ormanager.com
Amanda
Bailey
https://aorn.org/events/live-webinars/intuitive http://www.ormanager.com
orm_november-2023

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of orm_november-2023
