Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, March 6, 1994                   TAG: 9403040168
SECTION: ROANOKE MEMORIAL HOSPITALS                    PAGE: RMH-12   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By JOANNE ANDERSON
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

THREE FLOORS UP IS HUB OF SUPPORT SERVICES

Central service is responsible for re-usable instruments and equipment in terms of ordering, receiving, storing, issuing, having returned, inspecting, cleaning, sterilizing, packaging and storing until needed again.

The central service department staff checks all re-usable equipment that is returned. Each item must be evaluated for its condition before it is cleaned and sterilized. The computer-controlled sterilization machines use either steam or ethyl oxide gas in the process.

"All the case cards, listing which instruments and supplies each surgeon needs for each operation, are filed here," explained manager Peggy Campbell. "Prior to a scheduled surgery, all the specified items are assembled on a cart which goes to either the fourth floor surgical suites or sixth floor cardiac surgery via small elevators."

When the carts are returned, Campbell continued, "the instruments are checked, washed and sterilized, and the carts go into their own washing machine to be cleaned."

With 17 surgical suites and operations going on all day, it's a big job making sure all the right things are in the right places at the right times.

Adjacent to the central service activity is the new purchasing and receiving center for the foods and nutrition department. "We do all purchasing and receiving in one location now," said Fred Wiebach, director of foods and nutrition.

"Additionally, there is much more storage space in this new third floor location, so we can make more quantity purchases and operate more economically," Wiebach pointed out.

Before moving into the new South Pavilion, goods were being received at ground level and transported to the 13th floor. Now everything is received at a new loading dock at the third floor level.

Although some food preparation can be performed in the new area, Wiebach indicated that cooking is in the long-range plan for some of the shell space on the floor. A new menu went into effect in November, and Wiebach feels that the advantages of new management procedures and expanded storage space will result in better service and food variety to the patients.

Volunteers are a valuable asset in hospital service. The offices on the third floor will give volunteer coordinators better space for training and consultation.

The locker rooms on the third floor are strategically located so operating room teams can change into sterile clothing and walk up to the fourth floor surgical suites.

According to administrative intern Craig Sommers, the special staircase between the third and fourth floors is "a sterile area, so surgery personnel do not need to go into public areas before an operation."

Three floors up is one of those support areas, not seen by the public or the patient, but whose value contributes to the entire enterprise and the wellness of each patient.