Troubles facing the sterile processing are how to manage the significant increase in volume of instrumentation, for today and tomorrow

Central Sterilization Department (CSD) is at the heart of the healthcare facility
The Operating Room is the primary customer and continuing increasing procedural volume, which exceeds the Central Sterile Department's capacity
A single additional surgical procedure greatly impacts the workload on sterile processing by a factor of 5 to 13 times
As health systems acquired medical clinics, the regulations requires the clinic instrumentation be processed to the same standards as those for the operating room instruments
The medical clinic instrumentation in many cases can be 15-30% of the volume processed by the CSD
Short cuts may be utilized to satisfy the demand but can result in lower quality, service levels and increase in costs

More complex surgical procedures are moving to remote ASC’s
Regulatory changes for ASC's are also changing
Majority of existing ASC’s do not have the sterile infrastructure to support the more complex procedures/volume and regulatory requirements
Duplication of CSD capacity and instrumention requires scarce capital resources
Sterile Storage is limited and utilizes valuable space
Several healthcare providers across the country have had to stop performing surgeries and/or had to inform patients of potential exposure to infectious diseases