When the OR is on the Line – Sterile Processing Emergency Response

When the OR Is on the Line, There’s No Time for a Learning Curve 

By Jenny Muhammad, Director of HR — Advantage Support Services, Inc. 

In sterile processing, the difference between a manageable situation and a full-blown crisis can be measured in hours. I’ve seen it happen a facility gets a call, discovers that a significant portion of its sterile inventory has been compromised, and suddenly the operating room schedule is at risk. The revenue exposure runs into the tens of millions. And the clock is already running. 

That’s the moment ASSI was built for. 

How a Crisis Actually Starts 

When hospitals reach out to us for rapid response support, the situation usually falls into one of three categories: a workforce disruption  mass callouts, a labor action, a backlog that spiraled past what the team could manage a regulatory event that requires immediate corrective action, or an environmental event that has compromised sterile inventory at scale. 

Each one carries the same urgency. Each one threatens the same things: the OR schedule, surgical revenue, and ultimately patient access to care. 

One of the deployments I keep coming back to involved a Midwest health system that experienced a high-intensity moisture event in their central sterile department. More than 5,000 trays were compromised. The facility was facing the real possibility of shutting down their operating rooms entirely. We’re talking about $50.5 million in surgical revenue at risk and beyond the dollars, we’re talking about patients who needed surgery. 

The Call Comes In. We Move. 

When a facility reaches out for emergency support, our process begins immediately. My first step is reaching out to our networ professionals who have worked with ASSI before, whose skills we know, whose credentials we’ve already verified. We prioritize people we’ve placed in similar environments because in rapid response, there’s no time to get to know someone’s work. We need to know it before they board the plane. 

Within 10 hours of receiving that call, we had our first team member on the ground at the facility. Within 24 hours, a 10-person team was deployed and working. They came from different parts of the country, flying in on overlapping schedules and the logistics of that alone are significant. Coordinating flights, ground transportation, lodging for 10 people simultaneously, while also managing credentialing, certifications, and communication with the facility’s leadership team it is full-on, around the clock, until every person is placed. 

10 hrs  First team member on-site

10 people  Deployed within 24 hours

12–16 hrs/day  For 6 consecutive days

$50.5M  Surgical revenue protected

Our teams commit to a minimum of 6 days. They work 12 to 16 hours per day. That’s not an estimate that’s a real commitment we make to every facility before we send anyone, so there are no surprises on either side. 

What Rapid Response Actually Requires From the Facility 

I want to be honest about something that’s easy to overlook: rapid response is a two-way partnership. When ASSI arrives, we integrate under the facility’s protocols and chain of command. Your team leads. Our team executes. But for that to work, the facility’s leadership has to be engaged and ready to move just as fast as we are. 

In this deployment, the hospital’s manager was exceptional. She met our staff at the lobby as they arrived at different times, because they were flying in from different states gave everyone a schedule, showed them exactly where they needed to be, and communicated with us in real time throughout the entire deployment. When we emailed her, she emailed back immediately. That responsiveness matters enormously. 

“A rapid response only works if both teams are in it together. The hospital’s leadership was just as invested as our team and that’s exactly why it worked.”

 On the credentialing side: facilities need to understand that the normal intake paperwork simply cannot happen on a rapid response timeline. What we can do, and what we do, is verify certifications before deployment and begin background screenings within 24 to 48 hours. The facility needs to be willing to work within that framework. When they are, we can get people on-site faster than any other option available to them. 

What It Felt Like When It Was Done 

I’m not going to pretend the work is easy. Coordinating a rapid response deployment, logistics, communication, credentialing, constant communication with the facility, it’s intense, and it doesn’t stop until our last team member is on the plane home. But when I look at what gets accomplished, it’s hard to describe the feeling in any other way than rewarding. 

The images that stay with me are the before and after. Shelves stacked full of compromised trays waiting to be reprocessed and then six days later, the same shelves empty and restocked with clean, sterile inventory. The OR schedule that was hours away from collapse, running normally. Patients who got their surgeries. 

That’s the thing about this work that I think gets lost when you talk about it in terms of dollars and logistics. When sterile processing fails, the people who feel it most are patients who are waiting for procedures that keep getting pushed. When ASSI responds and we do our job we help the hospital, yes. But we also help the community that hospital serves. That’s always the ultimate goal. 

If You’re a Leader Who’s Thought “What Would We Do If…” 

That question, what would we do if our sterile inventory was compromised, if half our SPD team called out at once, if a survey finding came in with an impossible corrective action timeline is exactly the right question to be asking before the situation is in front of you. 

Organizations that have established a contingency partnership before a disruption occurs are in a completely different position than those scrambling to find support mid-crisis. Credentialing moves faster. Deployment moves faster. And the outcome for your facility is better. 

ASSI has put together an Executive Guide to Emergency Readiness specifically for sterile processing leaders, perioperative leaders, and hospital executives who want to understand how to prepare before the unexpected happens. It covers the three operational threats most likely to disrupt your surgical schedule, the warning signs to watch for, and what rapid response support actually looks like from the moment you make the call. 

Download the Executive Guide to Emergency Readiness 

Know your triggers. Establish a trusted partner. Activate with confidence. 

advantagesupportservices.com 

Don’t wait for the emergency to find a partner. The best time to have that conversation is before you need it. 

— Jenny Muhammad 

Director of Human Resources, Advantage Support Services, Inc. 

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This article is part of the ongoing leadership discussions featured in The Executive Edge—ASSI’s LinkedIn newsletter for perioperative and sterile processing leaders focused on performance, compliance, and sustainable systems.
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