Courtesy Saratoga Hospital
Saratoga Hospital recently completed a $5 million expansion of its central sterile processing department to accommodate significant growth in complex surgical procedures at the hospital and its Saratoga Surgery Center in Wilton.
The renovations increased the central sterile processing space by about 80 percent and added the latest disinfection and sterilization equipment, officials said.
The number of surgeries performed at Saratoga Hospital and Saratoga Surgery Center continues to increase each year. Much of the growth is in minimally invasive procedures that involve smaller, more sophisticated instruments that can be more challenging to clean and decontaminate, according to the hospital.
“Each instrument has to be cleaned differently, and each is sterilized and disinfected to meet the highest standards,” said Clay Landry, certified central processing director at Saratoga Hospital.
The department runs 24/7 to clean and decontaminate hundreds of surgical instruments used each day in the hospital’s surgical pavilion and Saratoga Surgery Center, as well as in the endoscopy suites at both locations.
“Decontamination is a lengthy, meticulous process,” Landry said. “The expansion and new, more advanced equipment have increased our capacity, ensuring that we have the necessary surgical tools on hand at all times. That level of confidence is important to our surgeons and our patients.”
In a separate development, Saratoga Hospital recently received $35,000 in grants from Mohawk Valley Medical Associates and MVP Healthcare to support innovative efforts to manage opioid use and help patients transition from hospital to home.
The grants were among the first awarded under MVMA’s new Program Excellence & Innovation initiative. Launched in 2020, the initiative recognizes programs that go above and beyond to address the needs of a specific population. The awards included:
$25,000 for Saratoga Hospital’s Interdisciplinary Opioid Management Program, which integrates pain management clinical pharmacists and a substance abuse counselor in primary care practices to help monitor, manage and reduce the use of opioids for chronic pain relief.
$10,000 for the hospital’s Inpatient Transition Program, which seeks to improve outcomes and reduce readmissions by helping patients with chronic or high-risk conditions arrange timely follow-up services after a hospital stay.
“These programs focus on patients who, with a little extra support, could see significant improvement in their health and day-to-day lives,” said Dr. Richard Falivena, vice president and chief medical and physician integration officer at Saratoga Hospital.
Although the programs are fairly new, early results are promising. During the first year of the Interdisciplinary Opioid Management Program, more than half the patients involved were gradually tapered off opioids entirely. Others were able to reduce the medication required to stabilize their pain, officials said.
According to the hospital, patients who received follow-up services through the Saratoga Hospital Inpatient Transition Program reported feeling less stress after an Emergency Department visit or hospital stay. In addition, they were less likely to be readmitted to the hospital than patients not in the program.
“The grants will enable us to extend both programs at a time when they are needed more than ever,” Falivena said. “We are extremely grateful for MVMA and MVP Healthcare’s leadership in encouraging innovation and supplying this extra support to healthcare providers and our patients.”