Hi, everyone. This is Lucas Voss with Becker's
Healthcare. Thanks so much for tuning in to
the Becker's Healthcare podcast series. Today, we're going
to talk about rethinking surgical operations and how
health systems can optimize
performance.
And I'm so very excited to be joined
by John Mahoney. Very excited to have you
here, chief product officer at Pristine Surgical. John,
thanks for being here. Thank you for having
me. It's great to be here in Chicago.
Absolutely. It's great to have you. I wanna
jump right in. I I did some research
ahead of this podcast, and there's a lot
of data that shows operator moves are are
really crucial revenue centers for hospitals right now
and and contributing up to 70% of a
hospital's revenue and up to 40% of its
expenses too, which is part of it. Right?
Creating more efficiency and reducing delays is is
really important there for for success. Where do
you see the biggest productivity gaps today, and
how are hospitals
approaching them? Sure. As we look at the
productivity gaps in the hospital's day, some of
the big areas that we see with pristine
specifically is in the reprocessing of the instruments.
Thus, we've come out with a single use
arthroscope as our first product that enables us
to go into the case with a sterile
packed instrument no longer needing to utilize the
central processing department to process those instruments. Not
only does that save on the amount of
labor that's needed, but it allows for other
procedures
to come into that to facilitate
those
instruments to be cleaned and processed in a
timely manner, allowing for more cases to be
done at the end of the day. So
you're also creating efficiency for staff, right, which
is really, really key.
What role in in this conversation, what role
does the staffing overall play? What role do
do the folks play that actually work in
these environments? Sure. So there's actually multiple facets
of the staff here. You know, the first
is the central process. And because we're coming
in as a sterile product already, we don't
need to utilize that staff. So we simplify
it there.
That leads to the time in the OR
where the staff doesn't need to wait for
processing to happen. Between the cases, they don't
have to wait for that stuff to be
reprocessed
to go on to the next case. It
also is simplifying it because they simply have
one sterile pack that they open. They can
dispose of that. They don't have to go
through multiple layers of Blu wrap, etcetera,
creating to the waste that's
assimilated with that. Yeah. Absolutely.
We kicked off our conversation
talking about cost, which is, again, it's a
very important part of this conversation. Absolutely. Very,
very important.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars. Equipment costs are
high. We're not even touching on the maintenance
piece.
It has to be maintained as well. How
are health systems
rethinking
their investments right now? What are some of
the
strategies that you think leaders should emulate
leaders should look to to really strengthen this?
Sure. In looking at the capital cost outlay,
it is prohibitive in introducing new procedures into
any place or to upgrading equipment that's there.
With the pristine system, we're able to actually
replace the current video system at no capital
cost to the institution.
So by doing that, they can then spend
on a per case basis, which allows them
to balance their budgets as their income is
coming in as well. So it's all done
on a per case basis
by us placing that in there. They don't
need to replace the expensive towers. You mentioned
hundreds of thousands of dollars for an individual
tower may cost a 100 to 150,000.
If you've got a four center, surgery center,
or hospital,
it's half a million dollars. Adds up very
quickly. And as you said,
that doesn't include the service contacts or the
maintenance that go along with it. With the
single use, you know your cost. You can
budget for that and plan accordingly throughout the
high points and low points in the year
meeting your demand. Yeah. Absolutely. There's a lot
more as we started the conversation, a lot
more efficiency,
a lot more it's faster. It's easier.
There is, however, this conversation around single use
devices. Right? It's you're you're bringing something in.
It gets used, and then we'll throw it
out. It's it's done.
There's there's this conversation about wastefulness, etcetera.
From your perspective,
how should leaders
reframe that, especially when we think about sustainability?
Right? And how can they and how can
this process contribute to
more responsible
and and resilient practices? What's the role in
all of this? Yeah. The critical thing is
looking at the whole process that you go
through to get this equipment ready to be
utilized. If you look at it, you go
into your central processing,
they have the gowns and drapes that every
individual there puts on in order to reprocess
the equipment. They degloved, they regound. There's three
to four sets that are actually utilized
in the process of using these reusable art
scopes. So as they do that, you actually
accumulate about two and a half bags
of non incinerable waste
that goes through the process compared to the
single device that we have, which is one
sterile package, about six inches by 12 inches,
that actually reduces the amount of waste that's
going into the environment. On the back end
of it, with the single use scope, we
actually have a program with Sharps that the
equipment will actually go into a reprocessing
situation
where they take all the rare earth minerals
and they resell them back to industry. All
the plastics actually get made into bricks. They
then burn for energy. So we've looked at
both sides of this to try and minimize
the impact on the environment and improve the
sustainability of what we compared to what we
have today. So this is actually a really
sustainable process. It what you just described.
It is. And it's ironic because as we
do this, everyone asks about the processes and
then decide, well, how many of you are
implementing this? And you see about 50% of
the hospitals are actually implementing it, and they
already have a blue bin there. So for
us to fill in the gap there, it's
just they can dispose of it in that
blue bin, and it goes along with their
already set of programs. Yeah. That's fantastic.
We know that as humans,
unfortunately, change is hard. We don't necessarily like
to change. When something comes in new, it's
tough. Right? Especially when we talk about workflows,
we talk
about staff, they have to adjust, etcetera. It's
really, really key.
What advice do you have for leaders
working in new tools, working this process, in
trying to get ahead of that change management
piece?
What strategies
what advice do you have for leaders? The
critical piece for us has been looking at
all of the different players in this. You
know, it is not just about the surgeons.
It's not just about the administrative staff. It
is about the central processing and the nurses
and the physician's assistants that are working with
the equipment and making sure that you've understood
each of those players' role in this and
how it plays. When we talk to our
sales reps, reps are making sure that they
go at three or four different levels to
get the buy in of it. You know,
when we go into the OR, it's very
easy because we simply open a package.
We plug in one single plug into our
image processing unit, and the case is ready
to start. The rest of it is the
same as they are doing today in their
current procedure. So there isn't a lot of
training that goes along with it, but you
have to facilitate that with the nurses, with
the surgeon, and all the different parties. It's
also critical that we understand the full program
from an economic standpoint.
If we only sell to the surgeon, then
we're not understanding the economic standpoint.
And they're saying, well, it's more per case
that we're spending. Well, it isn't when you
look at those things we mentioned earlier, the
capital cost, the service cost, the repair cost
that are going along with it. So the
full complement of selling, understanding the different parties
and their points in this and getting them
aligned, we have certainly run into those situations
where we haven't done a good job. We've
had to go back and improve those for
ourselves.
But that's really where true partnership matters, I
feel, like having conversations,
being a partner,
helping, and being invested in organization success.
Absolutely.
You know, our sales team is pretty in-depth
at not only the OR side of it,
but also the administrative side and understanding how
the different groups will work together and balancing
those for them. Them. Absolutely. John, so fantastic
to have you. So many great insights. I've
learned a lot, especially about sustainability. It's very,
very interesting.
I wanted to open it up for you.
Anything else that you wanna share, with our
audience? Anything else that you wanna add to
our conversation?
You know, I think it's great to see
the movement towards the single use devices, looking
at the patient health care and the simplifying,
you know, or in this case, arthroscopy for
us, but endoscopy as we grow larger. It's,
it's great to be here at Becker's, and
I appreciate the support. Absolutely. John, fantastic to
have you. Thanks for being here. And we
also want to thank our podcast sponsor, Pristine
Surgical. You can tune into more podcasts from
Becker's Healthcare by visiting our podcast page at
beckershospitalreview.com.