SPD911 EP2 PART 1 The Pay Problem, Staffing Challenges & The Future of Sterile Processing (Part 1) Feat Sharon Greene-Golden & Derrick Jones

Thank you. Welcome back to SPD 911.
I'm your host, Dr. Jake Taylor Jacobs, president and COO of Sips Healthcare.
And this show is all about tackling the toughest challenges in sterile processing. Whether you're on the front lines or making high-level decisions, we're here to equip you with real solutions to rescue and elevate your department.
Each episode, I'm joined by our Director of Clinical Compliance, Ms. Sharon Green-Golden, the GOAT, a leader in compliance and regulatory standards.
And our operations machine, our Director of Clinical Operations, Mr. Boots on the ground himself, Mr.
J. Cole Beter, Derek Jones, a specialist in operational efficiency and team development.
Together, we break down the critical issues affecting CSPD departments and provide actionable strategies to help you stay ahead. SPD 911 isn't just a show.
It's your emergency response team for sterile processing. We tackle compliance concerns, streamline operations, and help you grow as a leader in the field.
If you want to participate and ask live questions, you can join the Executive Edge community. It is free and the only way to engage with us directly.
Each episode We break down compliance and operational issues with expert guidance from the goats themselves because when it comes to sterile processing, every decision absolutely matters. Join us every, join us live every week on a Wednesday at 12 p.m.
Central Standard Time to catch the greatest sterile processing live show on planet earth what

is going on team how y'all doing today hello good afternoon great doing great glad to be back hey we missed last week but that's all right we back now right hey listen we have to give them something to just just miss us just a little bit we just have to give them a little something something to miss us. Yeah, yeah.

It's all good.

Let's bring it on. Hey, SGG,

it sounds like Der was sad we missed the episode. Yes.
Okay. He's been having that camera.
For all of our own lookers right now in the SPD 911 streets, I want you to notice something. I want you to notice how Derek camera got better.
You know, SGG in the studiod 9-1-1 streets i want you to notice something i want you to notice how derrick camera got better you know sgg in the studio but new cameras we gotta do it right there's only one way to do it right we have to do it right it's currently snowing and icing here in dallas texas dj what you got over there where you are is it snowing man it's about uh so it's been snowing for the last two days We got about 20 degrees right now But I saw 7 degrees In Dallas Texas And I ain't feel so bad I almost went out and did a snow angel You know what I mean? 7 degrees in Dallas And I thought about considered moving I don't know about that 7 degrees First and foremost let me just tell you it's only going to last a week you know we have we have places uh in america where it's literally cold chicago is negative 26 degrees yeah but yeah in dallas is only going to last a week trouble don't last always come on home. I hope so.
I hope so. We're trying to get SGG to get her a little vacation residency here in Dallas.
Look, y'all just told me. I ain't too impressed with that weather.
It's seven degrees. Oh, man.
Let me ask you a question. Do you work outside? Yep.
I got to go outside to get to work. That's it going from you're going heat to heat baby heat right i'm small right yes sir so as you guys know um a lot of people have been uh extremely excited about our spd 9-1-1 show and our comments were absolutely amazing as you know people are going to know that we're back and we'll do our best job um our SPD 911 superstars our heroes out there are still processing heroes of making sure that even if it's ugly we'll show up on Wednesday every episode may not be the best if we're traveling if we're at conferences or if we're on site but at least we can make sure that you're you're getting your your 411 from a sharing green golden and Derek Jones.
I actually have a question that you guys know we prepare questions all the time for this show so that you guys can make sure that you have the right answers, especially coming from some of those that are a part of our group. So if you're not in our group, you need to join our free community today.
But this is what I will say. SGG, you're newer to this consulting space.
Okay. Going from regulatory

compliance, you know, all the stuff, you're part of all of the boards and then transitioning from being a manager on site to now being an advisor and consultant on the other side. What's been some of the hardest transitions for you before we get into some SBD questions? So, again, good afternoon.
One of the hardest transitions has been that I am utterly blunt about what is real and what is true. And people really don't want to know that they want you to sugarcoat

the standards and it's hard because you cannot sugarcoat best practice or evidence-based practice and standards and so when i'm asked by somebody what is the standard and they give me some bull crap, and I shoot it down, they're mad.

They upset. They angry.
But you ask me. And as the director, I'm supposed to give you truth, truth to power.
And it's been so hard because I'm having to count to 500 and formulate the thought in my mind to try to give the answers so that I don't stick knives in people.

But understand, what we're doing is dealing with patients and they're human beings.

And I cannot afford to not tell you the truth when you ask the question.

Thank you. with patients and they're human beings and i cannot afford to not tell you the truth when you ask the question and jake as you know i've been hurting people's feelings and and people not happy because i gave them the answer they didn't want the answer they wanted the tv version I'm trying to learn the TV learn the TV version.
That's the version that's kind of true, but not really true. And what I'll say to that is that's what I love about our partnership, because I'm going to give you the TV version.
And sometimes we need that blunt, hardcore truth to really get people to understand how serious this stuff is. So I think we got a good balance going on here.
So give me a little bit of that itch. I can use something.
Right. And the reason why I'm asking that is because we're in this space right when you love what you do so much um and you're in a facility that's underperforming and a lot of people that are in the field um and a lot of people that are in the field um that's their day-to-day job like they're inundated every day and a lot of them have only have access to doing things in the way that it's been presented and so that that balance of saying i'm going to give you what you need and what i will always say sgg you got to give them medicine with uh inside a candy you got to make it sweet and then just kind of just kind of sauce it in uh derrick what was some of your harder transitions for you as you transition from being in the field to actually becoming a consultant and a a turnaround specialist for SPD departments? I think the biggest challenge is

the level of communication with your frontline staff and teams and communicating with your upper line leaders and executives. Understanding the importance of withholding information and things that are happening in order to sort out the best opportunities to get the department flowing and moving in a positive direction.
Just so balancing that relationship, right? Getting my workers that are constantly complaining, nagging, and saying what it is and what it isn't, what they have, what they don't have, thinking that they have the answers, and understanding that their words and what they're expressing is being heard and is being communicated, but you may not understand what's being communicated coming back down to you. So that has been difficult for me in times due to the fact that um they may not always understand the meaning the frontline teams may not always understand that things are happening changes are being made your voice is being heard but i can't tell you exactly what's happening in the moment well one thing i could tell you sgg and derrick the reason for this platform is for you to give your unmitigated truth i don't want you to spare any expense because at least on this platform if they're coming to watch our show they're coming to get that truth and i believe that on podcasts we have a lot of politics that are kind of being said.
And I think sometimes it's a safe environment to rip the bandaid off so that people can actually look at what's really going on so we can actually create the changes that we need. So guess what, y'all? I got our first scenario.
You know what I need? We need like a scenario sound. Like when I say we got our first scenario we can go like like something like that i'm feeling something like that okay maybe maybe derrick can help us out he got the studio back there all right so so sdj listen um and dj we want to talk about scenario one it was a a big question that kept getting asked.
It's the pay problem. SPD techs underpaid for critical work.
Here's the situation. Many SPD techs feel underpaid compared to the level of responsibility they carry while hospitals increase salaries for other health care roles.
SPD wages remain relatively stagnant, despite the increasing complexities of the job in certification requirements. The question is, how can SPD leaders advocate for higher pay and better financial recognition for their teams, especially in a cost-conscious hospital environment today? Okay, so I've had to deal with this forever.
People do not understand, first of all, the importance of what is done in sterile processing. If they understood the importance of what we do, they would be willing to pay us to help them have infection-free lives.
But because the hierarchy doesn't understand, they actually grouped us with the group that gets the lowest amount of money in the hospital. They put us, and it's nothing wrong with these departments, but they put us with environmental services.
They put us with the kitchen staff. I think everybody should get paid what they're worth.
But they put us with groups that don't require as much knowledge and expertise as we really have to have. You see, in our field, we are part of an intricate team that has to work together.

You need instruments to do surgery because we're not in Star Trek yet.

We don't have a tricorder.

Bones isn't here.

So you need instruments to do surgery.

You need surgical techs to handle the instruments at surgery to pass them to the physician. And they get paid.
And they don't understand surgical techs don't think they're getting paid with their worth either. But they get paid for their expertise.
We're the one group that they're not paying us for our expertise. And it's because we're in the United States of America where this particular job at this time does not require you have a degree.
Because if we had to have a degree, they'd have to pay us for going to college and getting the degree. So we don't go to college necessarily and get this training.
This training is able to be done without actually going to college. It is more of a OJT training on the job.
You learn the basics and then you do the job. So to pay us, we don't have to have in 45 states a license.
You can call Joe Blow off the street bring him in say come in here Joe and let me show you a couple things hold on now SGG we gotta slow down my favorite song is Indie I read and it says slow down baby you're going too fast you got your hands in the air your feet on the gas you about to wreck your future oh slow down slow down sgg now now this is and this is why i think it's important because the whole purpose of spd 9-1-1 is not just to communicate to people in the field but to bring light to the people that matter,

which are the patients to understand the value. And I'm going to tell my piece in a second.
But for those that don't know, why is that such a big thing for you? Because I hear you talk about that all the time, that in 45 states, there is no certification required. And you sit on it.
Can you talk about why that's important?

It's important because we have to know in this field, we have to know not only how to clean an instrument, we have to know how to check an instrument for workability. We have to know how to process the instrument.
We have to know how to keep the instrument. We have to know the instruments, hundreds of thousands of instruments.
And this is knowledge that you get on a day-to-day basis as you work. And no one wants to pay me for that expertise.
As much as my surgical tech brothers and sisters know instruments, they sometimes have the ability to specialize. And they can tell you, I only do eyes.
Well, the SPD tech does not have that ability. We have to know the eye instrument, the ortho instrument, the neuro instrument, the urology instrument.
You want me to know all of this, how to clean it, how to know it's working, how to process it, all for $2. And you're paying my brothers and sisters who are handling the instruments $40.
It doesn't make sense to me. By making me be required to know the basics, which is what certification is.
Certification is having the basic information to handle instruments. Then you get quality.
See, you get what you pay for. A patient's life is on the line.
You paying me $2 and you want $50 worth of expertise. It doesn't work like that.
And even though, and I call it sad, glad, your SPD technicians love what they do, most of them. They will come in and learn that job.
They will learn how to handle those instruments. They will put those trays together for those $2 because in America, they need that particular job in order to take care of their family.
They have no choice. And so, you know, we're out there doing something that is so important and the hierarchy doesn't understand always the importance.
Now,

I've been fortunate to be able to go to C-suite at times and say, you're going to have to pay us

more. We're losing people to other hospitals because they're paying more because they realize the importance of paying people.
Now, you know, Dr. J, people will say, it's all about money, yes, it's about money.
You need to pay me for my expertise. It is about money.
That's right. And it's about me taking care of the patient.
That's right. The doctor doesn't come in and work for $2.
That's right. The anesthesiologist, one of the highest paid physicians in the United States, they don't put you to sleep for $2.
They go by the minute. So my point is, why is it the people handling the instruments before the surgery, surgery starts in SPD, are not being paid? And it's because overall, hospitals have grouped us with the wrong group.
It's about getting us with the right group they call us non-clinical and i think that's the wrong definition because what i'm doing is as clinical as you handling the instruments and i'm uh that's that's where i'm gonna stop it right now all right so i got some pushback i got some pushback i want to give on the side. And I will be I'll be open and happy to hear you guys take on that.
So, Derek, put the question back up. DJ, I'm gonna bring the question back.
How can SPD leaders advocate for higher pay and better financial recognition for their teams, especially in cost conscious hospital environment today? Yep. Yep.
And just just just to piggyback SGG hit it on point, the guru, she, she's spot on. When I started in SPD, I think the average salary in Missouri was anywhere from 12 to $15 starting entry.
And, you know, you can't, you can, you need two full-time jobs to pay your apartment rent as an adult. So, uh, but the best thing to do to get our leaders and get our executives to understand what we need is to first, we got to gather the concrete volume evidence, gather the information about how complex the scope of work is that we are actually performing.
And then we have to correlate that with patient safety and OR outcomes to be able to tell the story of the importance of our role and all of the things that, as SGG mentioned, that are responsible for ensuring successful outcomes in the OR. At that point, once the executives understand our value, then maybe we can advocate for more money and higher pay rates to get people to, you know, to retain employees in this particular career field.
So I want to say I have advocated, I have brought the CEO to the department to stand in front of the actual team workers and let them tell him this is what we need. This is why we need it.
This is why I want to leave. Now, I happen to have worked the last few years in the DMV.
So that's D.C., Maryland and Virginia, where the pay rate is a bit higher than it is in some other areas and we would constantly have to balance against DC paying people more and people wanting to jump ship Maryland would come up DC come up Virginia come up so it was a game they were playing but if they would just decently have a clinical ladder for us, one, be willing to look at the numbers and how important it is of the job that we're doing, they would understand they need to bring us in at a decent rate and pay people what they're worth to take care of your patients. SPD is the heart of the hospital.
We touch every part of the hospital in some way or form. This group of people, you cannot find them on the street with a sign saying we'll work for food.
They're hard to get quality SPD technicians. And if you get one, you need to try to keep that technician by any means necessary.
And the love of the job is one thing. I have passion, but passion didn't pay none of my bills.
I couldn't eat with passion. So neither can the doctor, neither can the CST tech, neither can the first assistant, neither can the anesthesiologist.
So why is it I'm with the group that you want me to work for nothing? You have to be willing to raise the bar. And it happens to be with money.
And y'all, I'm just for everyone that's looking on right now, this show is going to be a little bit lengthy because I got some questions that we got to get out. We have to make up for last week.
So just hang tight. We're going to have us a party today because in this space, now I have my business hat on, right? Because I want to give you guys pushback for the dialogue of the community.
First and foremost, a lot of people ask for raises or ask for things without fully understanding the history of changing of pricing, pays and everything. I always say if you study your history, you can dictate the future in some capacity and some value at some volume or at least be able to mitigate a lot of mistakes that can happen.
And so with SIPPS being one of the pioneers of traveling technicians, one of the biggest mandates that SIPs has when we displace our technicians into the field is that they have to be certified. Matter of fact, prior to 2010, the notion of traveling technicians wasn't really a thing.
You had consultants, advisors, but you didn't technically have traveling technicians. Then you went to this phase between 2010 and 2014 when this new waving, raising tide of technicians that travel began to be a thing.
Okay. And so SIPPS was a large reason of a lot of pioneering in that space.
And there's a lot of people's independent companies that got started that came through Sips and the function that we have. Hey, bless the industry.
But the biggest focus is the missing is our founder, Karen Cherry Brown, where she said you can't travel unless you're certified. And I know for a fact that you know what you can do.
And the issue that I'm seeing as a businessman, and you guys let me know. And I think that this may be a reason I would like to hear y'all's response to this.
We talk about, hey, you know, you know, hospital C-suite, they're not respecting us. We should get paid more.
And to their point, they say, oh, we tried. we tried 2017 to 2022 we adopted this traveling spd world we paid y'all 50 60 an hour we tried we paid who was considered to be the best and y'all staffing agencies y'all consulting firms y'all sent people in here that was supposed to be certified that was supposed to be experienced that are worse off than the staff that's actually at our facility so when you say pay more we've paid you more and some people have even been six-figure companies and some are even permanent contractors because they like to negotiate higher prices so in that case how would you defend that uh Sharon Greengold and DJ and DJ that says hey we've tried it we paid y'all a lot and it broke it broke the hospital system we're reverting back to internal staff building because obviously the certified people that y'all say are certified there's no proof that they actually are really good at what they do so the people that y'all deem that are the best of you were actually some of the worst of you.
So how do we actually combat that? Because yes, everyone complains about getting paid more, but the real truth is where is the accountability of high quality technicians being put into the field and who's holding people accountable because all tides rise, all boats in both good and negative light. So can y'all talk about what that is and how can we combat that or what you would do as a SGG and DJ to combat that for those business executives that think like I do? Well, for one thing, during the time that they started really needing traveling technicians, they needed them because they couldn't get technicians

in their local area because there were none there.

What they didn't necessarily do was vet

the people they were getting.

They didn't set their standards as far,

this is my opinion, high enough to say,

I want the best of the best.

Some people, so let me just put it this way.

You can read a book,

Thank you. high enough to say I want the best of the best.
Some people, so let me just put it this way. You can read a book and take a test and get certified and not know your head from your behind, okay? So certification, as I say, and I will always be on the record, is the basic knowledge of what we do.
What you need is experience. You need to actually be in there doing the work.
So we got traveling texts, and they harped on the word certified and not on the word certified with experience. Certified with experience and knowledge, certified with experience, knowledge, and some vetting.
Did you really go and check where Sharon Greengoldin worked at before? Did you check to see that she know what she was doing before you brought her on to pay her? Yes. The pay for traveling texts texts went high and I've had a few traveling texts in my time I was not I was not willing to have traveling texts why because I found that the few I had in the beginning were not qualified to be in my department.
And I felt that if you come in as a traveling tech, you should be able to work anywhere in that department. I need you to work and I don't need to train you.
You come already trained. All I have to tell you is where the locker room is, where the toilet is, and go to Deacon Tam.
You know the process process but what I found is that I got texts who were asking the people getting two dollars how do you do this what is this tray how do you put this tray together and so now I had to battle between someone getting forty dollars an hour against somebody getting eighteen dollars an hour And you're asking me questions all the time. And that is where the painful realization came that we were not putting always, and this is in general, people don't start writing me letters that we were not always putting quality people in the field.
Everyone that was traveling, didn't know what they were doing. Everyone that was traveling had not ever been in an SPD long enough to know what do you do when you recall a load? Everyone traveling didn't know how to clean instruments.
So they put a bad light on us in general. And so, yes, administrators were like, I'm paying you.
But, you know, I just want to say what you were paying us as traveling techs and you talked about the budget and how the budget was busted was nowhere near what you were paying other travelers from other entities. So the bottom line is you had to pay somebody, but it was your responsibility.

We talk about accountability, which means responsibility, accepting responsibility for your actions. Did you actually vet this person?

Don't take me in because I said I got two years and you see I've been certified for two years. Do you see where I worked anywhere for two years and actually did some work? Do you see my evaluations? Did you ask the right questions? No, you didn't.
You know, I didn't like virtual interviews because you could not see what a person knew. I need you to come into my department.
I need to give you the cranny ottoman tray. I need to watch you put that tray together.
Now I know what you can do. Over the phone, you sound good.
On paper, my resume looks beautiful, but do I really know how to paint a picture? No, I don't. So the bottom line is the CEOs, COOs, human resources has to take responsibility for what happened during that time because they didn't do their due diligence.
They have to accept the consequences for their actions and not put all SPD technicians in the same bowl because we're not there. You have quality travelers out here who have experience, know what they're doing, who are willing to do what's right, but you have to be willing to do your homework.
DJ.

And what I. they're doing who are willing to do what's right but you have to be willing to do your homework

dj and what i'll say to that is um and this is just my opinion but i believe the industry of the career field of spd is is purging itself of a lot of people that were grand and brought, brought up through housekeeping or EVS or dietary and just placed in these positions. And once they were able to discover that there are more pay opportunities as a traveler, all you have to say is I have experience, but like Ms.
green Golden mentioned, it may be bad experience, right? So then you begin to spread all of these bad habits and poor training techniques that you developed all across the country because this particular hospital needs a technician because four or five technicians walked out and they need help. So there's a lack of ability to do onboarding training.
The supervisors don't have time to, uh, uh, properly vet this, um, traveler or agency staff that's coming in to support. So it gets to the point, Hey, we're suffering.
Just go in Deacon Tam and we hope for the best. And then when it's time to renegotiate or get a contract extension, the hospital is at a point where they're like, hey, we would do without the traveling agency because it's costing more and we're still having some of the same challenges.
So I just think that now that there is a light, thanks to Ms. SGG and all of our pioneers, Karen Cherry, that really put a light on the SPD industry and with HSPA, we are really helping express or show and put on display the crucial skill, technique, and training that's needed to really get our technicians up to speed on performing these day-to-day duties and responsibilities.
And Dr. Jank, the reality is, and I said it, I keynoted the HSPA meeting a few years back.
Okay what I said is we're in America, y'all. It's going to require that we get a degree to get the money that we require.
They don't want to pay us with just a little certification class. They don't want to.
They want us to go and come in with some letters behind our name. And then they're willing to pay a bit more.
It's sad that that's what you have to do. But I said to the team, you need to understand as we go forward in this world and in this life, what we did in the past is not acceptable anymore.
That's right. Yes.
You can train a person to work in SPD. If they're willing to be committed to the job, if they're willing to understand the importance of the job, if they're willing to learn the instructions for use and do what they have to do.
But the bottom line is that in the United States, where it should

be required in every state that we be certified, we're dealing with instruments going into somebody's body at some point. Every tray I put together touches somebody's body.
You should require that I have some official knowledge, just like you want the rn the lpn the cna the doctor the anesthesiologist the tattoo artist the dog groomer that's just the dog i'm just saying you don't want me to know anything and i can hinder your life not that that we do, but I can. And the bottom line is

we don't want to be the outlier reason for a patient having an infection. So it requires the

education. It requires the time.
It requires the commitment and people have to have clarity about

what their job is. Dr.
J. Clarity means, do you know what is expected of you? Yep.
And I think

Thank you. people have to have clarity about what their job is.
Dr. J clarity means, do you know what is expected of you? Yep.
And I, and I think that, um, one of the biggest things as we're working with some of the, you know, some of the most prestigious hospital systems, um, in the country and we're building, helping them truly build, um, like pathways, true development pathways within the organization. I think that now to your point, and I'm glad I asked that antagonistic type of question to get you to kind of respond because that's what we're doing.
You know, we're building up these pathways here. I don't mind anyone with just a certification being started off entry level.
I don't mind it. But as they are, and this is my take, if the hospital system were to be proactive in the development of their team, their staff, and their professionals within their system, and then that person decides to opt into the development programming or trainings, as they complete and show thyself approved, it should come with a raise because the cost variance of bringing in new temporary staffing to a culture you're trying to build and then having those temporary staff leave and then hire people from the street.
That's a total different organization. I don't care if you have the same leaders.
That organization starts back over from scratch. And so it is my plea that one, a central store processing technicians, professions, managers, leaders should be petitioning to their upline, to their leadership.
We need more development because this is no longer a trade.

This is a profession. We have people that have PhDs, doctorate level, MBAs that are now wanting to lead SPD departments that are now being put in place to be inside of central sterile processing departments.
And as we see the change with technology, with automation, with AI, with all of these integrations of the outside world coming into SPD, bring a more complex construct of running an organization versus the simplistic form that we have known it to be. It's forcing executives to take another look.
Like you say, the view through my window, SGG, is taking a view through the new window of spd to see it is not like the spd of old it is the spd of new but also with that that's going to we need to make sure that we're advocating to spd technicians all over the country that certifications alone and i will say this to any industry is not enoughifications alone is not enough. I'm sorry.
You can, and I've literally sat in front of leaders. They have every letter on the book, what we call in our industry the gold standard.
But when I ask them basic leadership development, managerial questions, change management questions, it overwhelms them. And when I'm talking, if I was your upline leadership, I'm like, those three certifications you got is not like the Fosse.
Because if it were like that, I would look at it different. But your responses to me, how you communicate, your emotional intellect, how you develop and how you train and how you build change management within your organization.
Everyone used the theme lean systems, lean management. We all use these all terminologies, but the actual context of the implementation of those terminologies or those frameworks is different than people being able to tell the definition.
And I think that we have to also advocate when we talk about accountability, accountability also has to be on our side. What is your development track? Are you just trying to check off the certifications just so that you can say you got them? Or are you truly mastering every single phase of your development so that when you do get a leader that speaks to you, they can see that bounds before anything, you're different because there are SPD technicians that do get paid well.
There are managers that do get a good check. There are directors that do have respect and that do have signing ability.
So if you do not have that inside your organization, the question is, am I truly developed as much as I think that I am? And I think that the problem is, SGG and DJ, we have to move on. I think that we're believing our own press.
We're believing the resume that we give to our interviewer and not understanding that there's a lot of development that's required and needed. And before we move on, I do have to ask DJ this question specifically because you're in the field.
You're helping us turn around SPD. We have a saying here that we have our motto that we turn SPDs from cost centers to profit centers and getting the executives to start looking at the profit is made in Periop in SPD.
The profit is made in SPD. OR, they generate the revenue, but the profit is made in SPD.
So the type of quality of leaders that's needed there is just as important to inundate the SPD with just as great of talent and pay as well as the OR. So DJ, I've got a question for you.
How often do you find when we're trying to place managers and leaders in positions that their resume says that they're qualified? But you when you interview them and you see them live on site, their their their their resume doesn't match up with with what they do every day. This is quite often, unfortunately.
And I'm almost wondering if the managers that I'm interviewing, when some of them speak to some of their experience as managers or supervisors out in the field and past experience as it relates to their resume if it is task-based. If they manage the task, but they put that task to speak for their whole experience as being a manager, you know what I mean? Is it task-specific? Maybe they were a project manager perpetrating as a department manager because it shows.
Because when we begin to have the high level discussions about where the department is where we desire it to go some of the assignments or projects that we need them to come in and and be a part of and support and foster to move in the right direction you begin to see see the disconnect. You start to identify the lack of experience in communicating or being able to execute.
And it helps me because with the experience, I am able to identify if they're a good candidate or not based on the level of discussion that you have during the interview process so there are a lot of managers and supervisors out here who's padding the stats and when you have a good team like ours hold on one second one second one second one second yeah one second slow down baby when you say padding the stats because here yes the purpose of spd911 sgg is to rip off that band-aid yes because when you're dealing with people that know the business of spd or the business of health care we know a stat pattern so when you say padding the stats dj what exactly do you mean padding the stats and sgg i will be happy to hear your response to what he said well just um giving false information on um um involvement in process and so just giving a high level statement of saying hey i was involved in a campus renewal project but can't provide details details of what that entail. I can't provide the processes that come about to ensure or can't speak to Amy Sanders' guidelines, compliance, can't speak to regulatory and best practices for areas within the department.
And I'll let her pick up because I know she got that pretty good you know they can't speak to the rules of the job they are going by hearsay somebody told me when i was in the spd this is what you do they have not even taken the time to study and to learn what it requires. They have no real experience.
You come into a SPD on a Monday morning and your OR, the walls are wet and the instruments are wet. What do you do? They have not a clue because that wasn't in the book.
That comes with

experience. That wasn't in the book.
They just know that, oh, we got problems and the OR is tearing everything open. What do you do? What do you do to facilitate that tragic event to help us move forward.
They do. they pad, they do pad their resumes to say what they've read in some resume book.
I bring them in, Dr. Jake, and say, uh-uh, I'm gonna stand right here, and here's the scenario, and what do we do? There's water running out the department, and de decontamments running down the hall well what are we gonna do and you know i've had people tell you well we're gonna get the wet vac we're gonna get some towels and put them on the floor no boo you're gonna go find the water source and cut it off see you won't know that if you never had that experience if you never paid attention and said what, what do you do when you never thought about the scenario? How do you cut the machines off if there's a problem? Where are the cutoff boxes? Where are the junctions? What do you do? But that comes with experience.
And so we have people out here who, under the title, they did manage something. I don't know.
they managed some people coming to work and their job was to make sure people went to lunch on time, but they never truly managed the process of sterile processing, which requires to do all of these different steps to get the product to the OR. So the quality is not always there.
And the problem, Dr. Jake, is that we are aging out.
SPD is aging out. You have some people who've been there as long as me and I'm old.
And we need to age out because we don't want to change and we don't want to learn anything new. But we do not have an influx of new blood because, and I'm hoping that we work on this more, we're not out there in the communities and in the high schools saying, this is something you can learn to do.
And this can be a stepping stone to something else. I want you to know I brought people in and trained them.
And I trained them with this thought. You don't always have to stay in SPD if that's not your true passion.
Maybe you want to be a CST, but let's learn the instruments first. Let's learn care of instruments.
Let's learn this basic job first. And you can always become a CST.
You can become a first assistant. I've had many technicians under my tutelage who are nurses.
I have a couple that are doctors. I have some that are doing other things.
They're CSTs, they're surgical first assistants, because that's what I told them. Always aim for the sky, but you have to start somewhere.
But you need but but we don't always have those ladders. And I saw someone answering clinical ladders for anybody to grow.
That's good. And my generation where we went to work and work 30, 40 years and then we retired.
That's not today's generation. They give you two years.
Maybe they moving on. They need to be able to grow.
And so hospitals have not allowed us, and SPD, some people don't write me letters, in general, have not allowed us to have the clinical letters that we need to foster a beginning SPD tech, a tech one, tech two, tech three, and pay them accordingly and and then encourage them to learn more and to get the certifications, not just for a certification, but to enhance their ability to process better. gather.
Yes. And this is the biggest thing with our next step leadership programming, implementing inside of hospitals is not putting the emphasis on the promotion and the raise on the certification itself, but the experience or the knowledge base that comes with the certification in practice.
And I think that that's the that's the change, because if hospital systems or any organization focused on if I were to turn my department into a learning center.

Well, we're always developing. We call it our next step leadership program.
That means that I know I'm going to get two or three years out of somebody great unless I have another promotion for them. That means that that next step leadership, I can't wait until they leave.
I have to be programmed and active in

developing that talent, which takes me actually to this next one, because I think it transitions

perfectly well into this one with the scenario number two, doing more with less mentality,

increasing workloads without increasing support. And here's the situation.
Hospitals now are

demanding faster turnaround times. SGG, hold on.
Faster turnaround times, more accountability and stricter compliance standards. But without increasing FTEs, upgrading outdated systems or providing additional training, SPD techs are being asked to perform at a higher efficiency levels without necessary without the the necessary resources.
The question to you too is how can SPD departments push back against unrealistic hospital expectations and advocate for the right tools, training and staffing to meet these demands? Number one, you have to do the hard thing and that that's you have to inform people. Ignorance is not a defense.
And what you don't know, you don't know. But that's not a defense.
So you have got to, as an SPD manager, it was my fiduciary job to let anybody know what we needed to function. My number one team member was infection control.
You worried about infections? Let me tell you why we might have some. I got three people working and they're trying to do 50 cases a day.
It's not going to happen. We cannot do it.
We cannot. We cannot function.
And just giving me a body is not the answer. I need quality people.
Giving me a body is part of the problem. Okay, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.
Oh, this is good. Derek, chime in.
She says, giving me a body is not the answer. And you being in the field every day, can you talk about the stresses that you deal with when a body is just throwing at you? Well, so, uh, throw the body.
Wait a minute. But, uh, the problem, right.
the concern with that is you really don't have the opportunity to develop a strategic plan to fix whatever challenges.