Eliminating unnecessary surgical supplies saved Centura Health $1.4M in one year
When it comes to a surgeon’s tools, the digital ones might not come to mind first, but they can be as useful as scalpels or forceps. Preference cards, the lists of supplies needed for a given surgery, were the focus of Centura Health’s efforts to polish processes and improve patient care while reducing expenses. They saved an average of 13% — about $147 — per procedure in surgical supply costs for a total savings of $1.4 million in one year.
Centura Health used a combination of Epic dashboards, preference card cost data analysis, and communication with OR staff to raise awareness of the costs of disposable supplies. Using cost data in Epic, everyone on the OR team is involved in proactively updating preference cards to control disposable supply costs.
