EFHSS Questions and Answers - Question Q00144

Dear Colleagues,
I would appreciate if anybody has information on staffing acuity levels for HSSDs. We are in the process of building a new sterile services department at our hospital and having made some enquiries - it seems there is no recognised formula or template that could support the obvious increase in staff that will be required. Maybe if someone has looked at this in detail already you might let me know. With thanks -- and hoping for some input on this -
Pauline
Dublin

Dear Pauline,

The number of staff members will of course be determinated by the activities of the CSSD. It will make a lot of difference if the department is also responsible for, i.e., the sterile supply and the distribution of the sterilized products. The best way to calculate the number of staff that is required, is by performing a work analysis and measuring the time needed for every handling. But this is very time consuming. Sabine Premer gave, at the occasion of the first EFHSS/DGSV Conference in Potsdam 2000, a very good presentation about this subject: "Personalbedarfsermittlung in einer ZSVA" (see EFHSS Conference Reports).

Beside you can use formulas to calculate the positions in the CSSD. In 1991 the Belgian Ministry of Health gave advise on the organising norms for the CSSD. In this advise the number of staff members is calculated with the following formulas:

(number of operative procedures in the OR / 1520) x 1 hour = X

The treatment of OR instruments normally comes to 60% of the activities, 20% comes to polyclinics, emergency unit, radiology, delivery rooms, intensive care, 20% comes to the wards. So the following correction has to be made:

(X x 100) / 60 = Y staff members

So far the official figures.

When you adjust these figures by including the absence quota i.e. sickness, education etc. the result is more realistic:

100 / (100 - 20 (absence quota in %)) = 100 / 80 = 1.25

Y x 1.25 = Total of staff members in full time equivalents

By making adjustments for the time needed for a procedure, the percentage your department spends on the medical technical services and on the wards, you can still refine these calculations and adapt them more to your situation.

I hope this will help you a little bit.

Kind regards,
Wim Renders

Wim,
Many thanks for your very helpful reply. I will look for the 'Potsdam' conference notes on the topic also.
Pauline Keogan.

In relation to question Q000-144
number of operative procedures in the Or / 1520 ) x 1 hour = x

Does anyone know where the figure 1520 was derived from and why it is multiplied by 1 hour. Is there anywhere we could get a full breakdown of the Belgian report?

Thanks
Isobel

Dear Isobel,

In fact the explanation is not very clear, sorry for that.

• 1520 stands for the effective working hours of one person, a year.
• 1 hour is the time needed for the treatment of the instruments of one operative procedure.
• x is the number of staff.

I hope it gets clearer now.
It is not really a full report, rather a brief advice but I'll translate it.

Enjoy a sunny holiday!
Wim Renders