Supervisor Sterile Processing

Where You'll Work

Welcome to Saint Joseph East, a 217-bed, full-service, community hospital located in a convenient setting in Lexington, Kentucky. Saint Joseph East also includes the Women's Hospital at Saint Joseph East which is dedicated to supporting the well-being of women in Central and Eastern Kentucky and serves a 16-bed Level III Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).


CHI Saint Joseph Health is part of CommonSpirit Health, a non-profit, Catholic health system dedicated to advancing health for all people. With approximately 175,000 team members and 25,000 physicians and advanced practice clinicians.


Our commitment to serve the common good is delivered through the dedicated work of thousands of physicians, advanced practice clinicians, nurses, and staff; through clinical excellence delivered across a system of 140 hospitals and more than 2,200 care centers serving 24 states.

Job Summary and Responsibilities

As our Sterile Processing Supervisor, you will provide 24-hour oversight and leadership for the Sterile Processing unit. This critical role ensures efficient, safe, and cost-effective sterilization, directly impacting patient safety and clinical operations.

Every day you will manage and lead the Sterile Processing team, allocating staff, equipment, and resources cost-effectively. You'll assist the manager with budget preparation, maintenance, and monitoring. You will also develop and maintain standards of care consistent with hospital policies and our Mission and Philosophy.

To be successful, you will demonstrate strong supervisory skills, in-depth sterile processing knowledge, patient safety expertise, and resource management. Excellent financial acumen, communication, and an unwavering commitment to quality assurance and organizational values are essential.

• Provide quality customer service.
  • Demonstrate good communication skills in a team approach to meet the service needs of all customers, focusing especially on the primary objective of assisting in direct patient care.
  • Interact with patients, family members, employees, physicians, visitors and other customers in a manner that is courteous, helpful, and pleasant; intentionally create a positive atmosphere in order to build trust between departments and employees; suppresses negative communication and redirects to the appropriate parties.
  • Fill Operating Room requests politely, promptly, and accurately as requested; matches the intensity of the requesting party.
  • Ability to prioritize needs of the requesting department(s); adjusts current responsibilities to accommodate.
  • Follow through until a given need is fully met or until the situation is thoroughly investigated.
  • When not occupied with one current job, looks to help fellow employees; moves with purpose to find work that needs to be done.
  • Fields employee issues and concerns with calm and consistency; confident to handle these issues independently; knows when and how to escalate as necessary.
• Perform duties in a safe manner, to prevent injury to self, patients, visitors or other hospital personnel.
  • Demonstrate knowledge of hospital policy for internal and external disaster, location of fire alarms and extinguishers, and all safety codes.
  • Demonstrate knowledge of hazardous materials when performing duties involving the use of them according to departmental policy, such as ethylene oxide, chemical detergents and hydrogen peroxide.
  • Demonstrate careful work habits when handling sharp objects or instrumentation using Universal Precautions to prevent injury, following OSHA guidelines.
  • Demonstrate careful work habits when lifting, pulling moving heavy objects/equipment.
  • Assesses environment for safety hazards which could harm patients, visitors, or other hospital employees, and report hazards to appropriate supervisors.
• Performs cleaning and decontamination duties.
  • Wear appropriate PPE (personal protective equipment), which consists of: general-purpose utility gloves, liquid-resistant covering with sleeves, knee-high shoe covers, fluid-resistant face mask, and eye protection (full-length face shield or other device that prevents exposure to splash from all angles).
  • Assist in decontaminating surgical instruments by appropriate methods, ensuring that all visible soil is removed preventing the exposure of infectious materials. (i.e. VRE, MRSA, hepatitis, etc.)
  • Operate instrument washers, cart washer (if present) and sonic washer proficiently.
  • Ability to assess and troubleshoot equipment to maintain continuous workflow in the decontamination area.
  • Use good judgment in reporting any malfunctioning equipment to supervisor or manager. Follow hospital policy for decontamination of patient care equipment. Contribute to the efficient operation of the department.
• Performs preparation and packaging duties.
  • Understand basic principles of packaging/wrapping techniques to allow effective exposure to all surfaces of the package and contents for sterilization to occur.
  • Understand principles using multiple sterilization indicator and chemical integrator products.
  • Correctly identifies and assembles all surgical instrument sets according to appropriate count sheets.
  • Identify proper packaging/wrapping methods of surgical instrumentation or single items, ensuring easy identification for the user and the sterile integrity of that item.
  • When assembling a set, attempts to locate all missing instruments to make the set complete; clearly notes when items are missing.
  • Correctly identifies, disassembles different mechanical instrumentation (i.e. Ankenny retractor, saws/drills etc.).
  • Works at preparing instrumentation with focus and intention; prepared to help meet the needs of other aspects of the department (cart wash, washers, phone, etc.) but returns to preparation without becoming distracted.
  • Utilizes excellent organizational techniques to ensure that preparation is done quickly without sacrificing accuracy.
• Performs sterilization and monitoring activities.
  • Determines appropriate sterilization method, according to the manufacturer recommendations.
  • Scans all instrument sets in preparation for sterilization and utilizes all aspects of SPM.
  • Assures that each item is stamped with sterilizer number, load number and Julian date; ensures that every container or wrapped item is appropriately labeled and that all filters, locks, and process indicators are present.
  • Arranges items correctly on the sterilizer cart to insure complete contact of the sterilant to each item.
  • Observes and assesses the mechanical operation of each sterilizer, identifying that all parameters have been met for sterilization.
  • Processes daily test packs and biological indicators according to departmental policy.
  • Assesses external chemical indicators for proper sterilization of each item prior to its distribution for patient use.
  • Evaluates previous load information and accurately documents contents of sterilizer load, verification of the sterilization parameters of each cycle; records biological indicator results.
  • Initiates recall procedures when appropriate. Immediately reports any discrepancies or malfunctions to Sr. Tech, Supervisor or manager.
• Performs dispatch duties.
  • Ensures that the OR has the correct sterile instrumentation necessary for all procedures.
  • Fill Operating Room requests politely, promptly, and accurately as requested; matches the intensity of the requesting party. Confidently asks questions to fully clarify the need; thoroughly explains all actions that are being taken to fill the need.
  • Ability to prioritize needs of the requesting department(s); adjusts current responsibilities to accommodate.
  • Oversees the throughput of the entire department; coordinates priorities to ensure overall efficiency.
  • Processes and tracks all loaned instrumentation through the department and ensures that it is done in a timely manner.
  • Maintains stock and supplies.
  • Performs all ancillary duties necessary to keep the department working smoothly (e.g. cart wash, washers, phones, and other alarms).

Job Requirements

Required

• High School Graduate General Studies and Minimum 1 year experience as a Sterile Processing Tech II, upon hire or
• High School GED General Studies and Minimum 1 year experience as a Sterile Processing Tech II, upon hire and
• Certified and Registered Central Service Technician, upon hire or
• Certified Sterile Processing and Dist Supervisor, upon hire or
• Certified Sterile Processing and Dist Tech, upon hire or
• Cert Sterile Processing Dist Tech, upon hire and

Preferred

• Previous experience in a leadership role
• Certified Instrument Specialst, upon hire or
• Certified Healthcare Leader, upon hire