Single-use cystoscopes help increase access to care

In this video, David Barquin, MD, describes the background and notable findings for the Urology paper, “The Impact of Single-Use Cystoscopes on Clinical Time Workflow in an Outpatient Setting.” Barquin is a urology resident at Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, North Carolina.

Transcription:

Please describe the background for this study.

Outpatient flexible cystoscopy is one of the most common urologic procedures performed. It is typically done with reusable equipment, which requires staff time for cleaning and processing, and can have some initial large startup costs. Several studies have looked at how single-use equipment compares to reusable equipment in this setting. However, nobody has looked at how single-use equipment affects clinical productivity and efficiency, which is what we aimed to do in our study.

What were some of the notable findings? Were any of them surprising to you and your coauthors?

We identified 12 discrete workflow steps for outpatient flexible cystoscopy, with 5 of those being able to be eliminated by the transition to the single-use scope. The elimination of these steps led to a reduction in encounter times from 66 minutes to 44 minutes, which is a 34% reduction. One of the surprising things was how this transition to single-use scopes translated into increased access to care for our patients. The median number of cystoscopies performed increased after the transition from 9 cystoscopies to 16, and the patient capacity for the procedure clinic improved from 12 to 24 patients per clinic day.

This transcription was edited for clarity.