How do we make savings in the health service?

This is probably the most asked question in Ireland at the moment, and the answer has eluded many politicians and economists. One forward thinking Irish company, however, has provided a solution: scrubEx.

Cork-based O’Flynn Medical is currently saving the Health Service Executive (HSE) in excess of €1million per annum. Introduced to Ireland by O’Flynn Medical in 2010, this automated garment dispenser allows for considerable savings in the provision of gowning, thus allowing hospital management to allocate their budgets elsewhere.

scrubEx also provides management reporting software to validate the laundry company’s charges and up-to-the-minute information and live data on all users, totally eliminating non-returns to the system.The system is widely used in US hospitals, but was unheard of in Ireland and Europe.

O’Flynn Medical realised that, in order for scrubEX to be a success in Ireland, it would have to ensure that companies providing the hospitals with scrubs could see the benefits.

Eighteen months ago, O’Flynn Medical installed the first scrubEx system in Mid Western Regional Hospital Limerick. Since then, a large number of Ireland’s hospitals have installed the system including Nenagh General, Ennis General, Limerick Maternity, Sligo General, Beaumont Hospital, Mercy University Hospital Cork and St James’ Hospital,Dublin.

As the supplier of scrubs to St James’s Hospital, Phillip Scallan, managing director of Celtic Linen, outlined why his company felt scrubEx would be beneficial "Celtic Linen had long been searching for a customer focused solution to the age-old problem of losing scrubs from its healthcare clients and the negative impact it has on costsand relationships," Scallan said. "The problem was very clear: hospitals were losing scrubs through unauthorised use and non-returns.The linen provider had to charge for replacements, resulting in the hospital paying more for its scrub service than it had to."

The situation was often aggravated by the fact that even after incurring increased costs, there never seemed to be enough scrubs to satisfy demand. For Celtic Linen, however, any solution needed to be user friendly, totally controlled and aseptic. If the objectives were met, the benefits would mean the customer not only profiting from available scrubs 24 hours a day, seven days a week, but also achieving cost savings through reduced usage and a transparent costmodel. If laundry providers don’t suffer losses, they won’t charge for replacements, so everyone wins.

Celtic Linen considers the scrubEx system to be the most significant development in hospital linen service this decade. St James’s Hospital has outlined some of the key benefits as the following:
authorised users have access to clean scrub suits on a 24-hour basis 365 days a year via their identification card;

• the system enables the setup of authorised users by means of a credit system;
• authorised users are obliged to return their used scrub suits in order to maintain their credits on their identification card;
• given the requirement to return used suits in order to obtain further clean suits the cost associated with non-return of scrub suits is eliminated;
• as a direct consequence of the elimination of non-returns, processing costs for scrub suits is significantly reduced.

In summary, the introduction of the scrubEx Vending Solution for scrub suits has resulted in a reduction in weekly scrub suit usage of 50 per cent and a corresponding reduction of 50 per cent in overall processing costs.

The system also has reporting capability which enables management overview of usage and associated costs. Joe Cosgrave, nurse adviser with O’Flynn Medical, acknowledged the hospital’s continued focus on improvement." Already a renowned centre of excellence, St James’s has greatly reduced unnecessary wastage at the hospital through better scrub management practices and investment intechnology that has provided a rapid payback," Cosgrave said.

"The scrubEX system shows howsavings can be made without having a negative impact on patient service or staff procedures. In fact, this system improves infection control andprevents cross-contamination with specially designed sealed unit dispensers and receivers."

The formal launch of the scrubEX system was recently held at St James’s Hospital and was attended by Dr. James Reilly TD, Minister for Health, Vincent Callan, materialsmanager, St James’s Hospital, Monica Griffin, theatre manager, St James’s Hospital, Tadhg O’Flynn, managing director and Phillip Scallan managing director of Celtic Linen.

Prior to his election Reilly was not happy about plans to cut €1 billion from vital frontline services, insisting that the cutbacks could be found elsewhere tomake up the deficit in the health budget.
Having seen the scrubEX system in operation, Dr Reilly advised that, considering the savings that can be made, he could not understand why all hospitals didn’t have it.O’Flynn was delighted to hear that the system impressed the minister.

"Cost cutting is an essential part of improving the Irish healthcare system and scrubEX has proven to be very beneficial in achieving savings," O’Flynn said. "We would love to see scrubEX installed in all Irish hospitals, both those operated by the HSE and private hospitals." scrubEX has proved so successful in the Irish marketplace that O’Flynn Medical has increased its portfolio and acquired the European and British franchise for these unique systems.The British market has had a huge interest in scrubEX, with the systems already being ordered in high profile hospitals such as Guy’s & St Thomas’s Hospital Trust and Birmingham Heartlands Trust.

Mainland Europe to be targeted

"The expansion into Europe could see up to ten jobs being created at the company’s head office in Cork, as 95 per cent of support can be done remotely from Millstreet," said Conor O’Flynn BE, project manager for scrubEX Europe. "As more units are installed across Europe, further technical personnel will be required."

Tadhg O’Flynn said that he had personally promoted scrubEX to all linen providers in Ireland. To date, Celtic Linen is the only company to reap the enormous benefitsscrubEX offers. O’Flynn would welcome enquiries from all linen providers and is offering a free 30-day trial to interested parties.

For more information on Spend to Save, call O’Flynn Medical on 029-21799 for full details on the benefits of scrubEX.