What we do as a perioperative team matters. Day and night, 365 days a year, we save, heal and improve the wellbeing of our patients. In the Sterile Processing department (SPD), compliance with evidence- and consensus-based standards and guidelines, as well as government regulations, is of crucial importance to our work and patient safety.

In episode 132, host Casey Czarnowski talks with international healthcare expert and renowned speaker Sharon Greene-Golden who has spent her distinguished career asking questions to better understand and improve processes. Greene-Golden describes compliance as working “in accordance with the established guidelines,” and she reviews the policies and procedures, standards and regulations SPDs need to be following. She also outlines recovery strategies for teams that are falling short of compliance and discusses the meaning of surgical conscience. “We have to be willing to evolve and change with time,” asserts Greene-Golden, which is why acquiring new knowledge and keeping up with continuing education is so essential. After all, she says, “Surgery begins and ends in SPD.”

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