PORT ANGELES — Olympic Medical Center’s Operating Department has temporarily stopped performing non-emergent and elective surgeries after a sterilization machine malfunctioned.
An ultrasonic sterilization machine, used as the second line of defense to sterilize operating equipment, failed Friday morning, straining the hospital’s surgical capacity, according to hospital CEO Eric Lewis.
At the same time, the hospital has seen an increase in the number of needed surgeries recently, he said.
“We realized we only had so much capacity to do surgeries,” he said. “We wanted to reserve that capacity for emergent surgeries, things that are life-threatening or limb-threatening.”
At about noon Friday, the hospital limited surgeries, causing those with non-emergent or elective surgeries to have to reschedule or transfer hospitals.
Lewis said he knew of one case in which a patient was transferred.
While the machine malfunctioned, it was still working, he said.
It was just at a much slower pace than usual.
That machine is the second measure of infection control, he said. It’s used to disinfect operating tools after they have already gone through another cleaning machine, which he likened to a dishwasher.
At no point did the hospital run out of sterile equipment, Lewis said.
“The big thing is we’re focused on safety and making sure we do quality work,” he said. “What we’re doing is making sure we’re able to deal with life-threatening or limb threatening-surgeries as we get equipment.”
Since the malfunction, the hospital has been ready at all times to deal with emergency surgeries and has continued to perform surgeries, he said.
The hospital has since ordered another ultrasonic sterilization machine to replace the broken one, which is expected to ship today.
Lewis did not have an estimate for how much the machine cost the hospital and didn’t know what day it would be delivered.
The hospital should be back to normal operations next week, he said.
OMC is also looking at getting a larger second machine to help meet the hospital’s needs, he said.
“We’re looking at two machines with the second machine having higher volumes,” he said.
OMC will also hire more staff and focus on process improvement to deal with the higher surgical volumes.
The hospital performs upward of 600 surgeries per month in its seven operating rooms, he said, and the trend is for that number to rise.
Since 2016, the hospital has added three surgeons, one specialized in orthopedics and another in OB/GYN, he said.
Karen Unger, a Port Angeles attorney, told the Peninsula Daily News that on Saturday an elderly family member was forced to go to Harborview Medical Center for what should have been a routine surgery after he fell and broke a hip.
He went to OMC after 5 p.m. Saturday, she said. It wasn’t until about 2 a.m. Sunday that he was transferred to Harborview, where surgery was performed at 11 a.m.
“This is a hospital we pay taxes to perform the surgery this guy needs and [they] send him to Seattle?” she asked.
His surgery went well, but he is now resting in Seattle for the next few days, she said.
She said it was an “inconvenience for the family for a surgery that should have been performed here.”
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Reporter Jesse Major can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56250, or at jmajor@peninsuladailynews.com.
