Delegates of 2010 CADTH Symposium select Sunnybrook poster as Best Overall Poster

A poster from Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre entitled "Innovative Technology Conserves Resources and Generates Savings: A Case Study from the Sunnybrook Regional Processing Centre" was voted Best Overall Poster by delegates attending the 2010 CADTH Symposium in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

The Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health (CADTH) is a national body that provides Canada's federal, provincial and territorial health care decision makers with credible, impartial advice and evidence-based information about the effectiveness and efficiency of drugs and other health technologies.

The 2010 CADTH Symposium, which commemorated CADTH's 20th anniversary, attracted more than 400 participants from all sectors of the health care system - policymakers, researchers, administrators, manufacturers, patient representatives and students.

Delegates selected the Sunnybrook poster as the best from more than 50 scientific posters exhibited at the Symposium, based on criteria such as originality and significance to decision makers.

Sunnybrook's poster was a summary of a paper by the same name published in Healthcare Quarterly (Vol. 12 No. 4 2009). The regional processing centre at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre faced challenges with respect to capacity, productivity and budgetary constraints. Upgrading to highly automated systems was the recommendation. An analysis of the impact of the change found that the new technology provided additional benefits including improved productivity, and cleaning quality; decreased costs; reduced water, electricity and chemical use; improved worker safety and morale; and decreased overtime. The new automated washing and disinfection system reduced annual operating costs by $342,204. In addition water consumption has been reduced by 7.7 million litres annually and electricity consumption by 9.5 kW per cycle.

"This award represents national recognition from Canadian health technology assessment peers on how the adoption of an innovative and effective use of a technology in a hospital setting can significantly improve operations while resulting in a significant cost-saving measure for the Canadian health care system," says first author Abdool Z. Karim, Manager of the Regional Processing Centre at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. "The award validates the time and effort we expend in moving reprocessing technology to the next level of innovation and the shifting paradigm of science."

Source: CANADIAN AGENCY FOR DRUGS AND TECHNOLOGIES IN HEALTH