Systems Engineering Approaches for Improving Reusable Medical Equipment Reprocessing Processes

Hospital reusable medical equipment (RME) includes any items that are intended to be reprocessed and reused indefinitely, including surgical instruments, dental equipment, endoscopes, and others. Such equipment represent a significant portion of a hospital's inventory costs and recently have generated significant patient cross-contamination concerns due to reprocessing cleaning failures. This paper discusses recent applications of industrial and systems engineering (ISyE) methods within healthcare organizations to help manage, understand, and improve RME processes, including quality control (QC), reliability, patient safety, facility layout, queuing networks, and inventory management models. Several examples demonstrate the value of these approaches for improved reprocessing management of RME technology.