The ASGE GI Operations Benchmarking Survey is a great opportunity to conduct an ongoing measurement of your business activities. It helps to know what is working and what isn’t to improve practice operations, adopt or improve upon other units’ best practices, and reduce costs by increasing efficiency. Read on for a tip on examining laundry expenses. and how you can participate in the Survey.
Laundry Expense per Encounter and Annual Laundry Expense per Room
Laundry expense is one of the key expense metrics that we believe has changed dramatically from the pre-COVID-19 normal as many units moved from laundered gowns to disposable gowns. In some cases, the laundry set per patient (pillowcase, lower and top bed sheet, absorbent pad, and patient gown) may also have changed as laundered pillowcases and patient gowns may also have shifted to disposable alternatives.
The current edition of the ASGE GI Operations Survey Databook we present data on laundry expense in two ways. The first is Annual Laundry Expense per Room:
The second is the Aggregate Annual Laundry Expense per Encounter, reported by percentile (25th Percentile = $5, 50th Percentile = $6, and the 75th Percentile = $8.
Laundry Expense is most sensitive when viewing these data from the point of patient encounters. Here, we present data that is not included in the most recent Databook, Annual Laundry Expense per Encounter per Room.
Laundry Expense tends not to reach economies of scale generated by increased volumes as the most sensitive element of the metric is patient encounters. However, these data are also sensitive to staffing and provider decisions in terms of staffing pre- and post- areas as well as the number of providers and staff in the procedure room.
When presented as Total Annual Expense, variations tend to be based on patient volumes while when presented as Expense per Encounter per Number of Rooms the metric is most variable based on staffing.
We encourage using these data to represent common expense and as a performance metric when evaluating your own unit. However, as we move forward catching up on the “COVID-19 Years” of 2019 and 2020, we look forward to reviewing these data for the level of increase expense as well as how units have adapted to the “new normal” we all face.
Learn more about participating in the current Survey and receiving a complimentary copy of the Databook.