Improving the sterile processing department (SPD) can not only foster better patient outcomes, but it can reduce costs to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars — even over $2 million per year, based on this 2021 hospital analysis conducted by the Wolverine Consulting Group.

Hard costs are associated with time — due to fixing errors like missing instruments, incorrect instrument sets, sterilization failures, etc. These added up to $1.7M for the hospital in the study.

Soft costs include legal costs (related to malpractice suits), customer satisfaction, and morale of hospital staff. The study calculated these costs to be over $500K per year.

Soft costs include legal costs (related to malpractice suits), customer satisfaction, and morale of hospital staff. The study calculated these costs to be over $500K per year.

Soft costs include legal costs (related to malpractice suits), customer satisfaction, and morale of hospital staff. The study calculated these costs to be over $500K per year.

Instrument costs are the actual costs of replacing broken instruments. While these expenses may be the least of the three, Instrument losses are largely underestimated, especially for complex device parts.