Bred To Lead | With Dr. Jake Tayler Jacobs
SPD911 Episode 4 - Staying Compliant Even When It's Tough
Wed, 19 Mar 2025
Welcome to SPD 911 with your host, Dr. Jake Taylor-Jacobs, as we delve into the critical issues of the sterile processing department (SPD). Joined by Sharon Green-Golden, a renowned leader in compliance, and Derek Jones, a specialist in operational efficiency, the show focuses on equipping SPD leaders with strategies to tackle compliance concerns and streamline operations. In this episode, we revisit the important topic of mental health in SPD, discussing the high-pressure environment that can lead to burnout and anxiety among staff. The conversation explores proactive leadership, emphasizing the importance of empathy, psychological safety, and being proactive in addressing challenges before they escalate. We discuss strategies for SPD leaders to be involved in hospital-wide preventative strategies rather than being reactive. Join our free Executive Edge community to participate live and catch the greatest central sterile processing live show on earth every Wednesday at 12 p.m. CST.
Chapter 1: Who are the key figures in sterile processing compliance and operations?
Welcome back to SPD 911. I am your host, Dr. Jake Taylor Jacobs, proud president and COO of Sips Healthcare. And this show is all about tackling the toughest challenges in sterile processing. Whether you're on the front lines or making high level decisions, we're here to equip you with real solutions to rescue and elevate your department.
Each episode, I'm joined by our Director of Clinical Compliance, the Sharon Green-Golden, a leader in compliance and regulatory standards and a goat of our industry of central steel processing. And our Director of Clinical Operations, Derek Jones, a specialist in operational efficiency and team development. DJ won't be here today, but he did send his wishes.
So we're happy to just be with Sharon Green-Golden today. Together, we break down the critical issues affecting CSPD departments and provide actionable strategies to help you stay ahead. SPD 911 isn't just a show. It's your emergency response team. We're still processing. We tackle compliance concerns, streamline operations, and help you grow as a leader in the field.
If you want to participate live and ask your questions, join the Executive Edge community. It's free. and the only way to engage with us directly. Every episode will break down compliance, operational issues with expert guidance, because when it comes down to sterile processing, every decision matters. So join us live every week on Wednesdays at 12 p.m.
Central Standard Time to catch the greatest central sterile processing live show on planet Earth. How is it going, SGG?
It's going great here. Like you asked me, it's a little gloomy. We got a lot of wind. But it's a new day.
It's a new day. So it is just now kind of clearing up where we are. We had a tornado warning the last yesterday. So we're kind of. We're kind of happy to kind of see the sun kind of shine again. The wind is blowing a little hard, so we all right. As long as it's not freezing, I think I'm all right.
That's good. I know that's right.
So, SGG, last week we had a banger. It was a really great conversation. And we want to continue that conversation today on the show, especially when we talked about that mental health piece. And that's the last thing we talked about was the mental health on the last show. And the scenario was... That high pressure, low recognition nature of SPD creates extreme burnout and anxiety.
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Chapter 2: Why is mental health crucial in the SPD environment?
And I know that you wanted to, you know, kind of touch base on it just a little bit more. Or when we were ending the show, I know mental health was a big thing for you. Was there anything else before we start the segment today and go into some other topics? Were there anything else about mental health that you would like for people to pay attention to?
I think that it's important in our departments that we pay attention to our team members. I think that we have to take into consideration that with the struggles of today's lifestyles, having to work a lot of them more than one job, that we have to be fully aware That how they think, how they're feeling mentally be considered and taken care of.
You know, you may have to offer a mental health day to somebody. You may have to offer a mental health week if they really are having some problems. But being cognizant of the fact that in today's world, especially here in America, how we feel mentally is important. And not to kick it under the rug, not to act like it does not exist because it does. And people are hurting.
So they come to work and they're hurting mentally. They have problems and being able to see that. And that was my reason for taking the mental health first aid course was being able to see that and being willing to, as I said last week, not diagnose anybody's problem.
I really don't want to know the problem, but I want you to know that I care and I'm aware and I'm willing to help you seek the necessary help. that you need in order to be able to function. Because understand, Dr. Jake, if I'm not functioning mentally, I'm doing a good job.
That's good.
If my mental status is warped, that does influence and affect the product that I'm putting out daily. And we deal with patients' lives unseen. And sometimes a contaminated tray could actually get into a surgical case and be used. That's the scary part of what we do. It could be used on a patient and that patient could have bad effects later that nobody even puts together with what we've done.
So I need for my people to be in the now. when they're at work in the now today, not in my issues at home, not in, you know, I'm just so mentally ill that I'm sick. I need to be able to depend on them to put out a good product. And that product just happens to be that we put out trays that have met the parameters of sterilization.
And we can feel sure that if it goes into that surgical case, the patient will not have a bad effect because of something we did. So how I feel mentally is important. And when you have someone that comes every day and you know how they are, you know that Golden comes in, she's smiling, she's happy. And for the last month, she doesn't even smile. You have got to step out as a leader.
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Chapter 3: How can leaders proactively address mental health in SPD?
You know, all the things to give you the qualifications to be in central sterile processing or even run a department. You got all of those certifications, right? But you saying that you, you know, took the extra step. to get that mental health, go through that mental health course so that you knew how to be able to guide and provide support to your, to your team.
What, what transpired that made you say, you know what, I need another level of training or development to better support these people that I'm leading.
I was dealing with, uh, employees, Dr. Jake, that, that I watched change before my eyes. COVID came in, um, It rocked the world, but it rocked our departments. We were being asked to do things that technically were not in the rule book. They were not in best practice standards. I had to do research to find out if that was going to be good. I had to always spend time with the C-suite.
But what I found was that my team members were not faring well. Now, the first few weeks of COVID, we were okay. But by 2021... In the middle of 2021 into 2022, I saw people who had changed. Their change was not a little change. It was a big change. And I didn't know what to do. Coming in and saying, hey, Dr. Jake, how you feeling? And this is your answer. I'm fine. We go tomorrow. I come in.
Hey, Dr. Jake, how you doing? Your eyes crossed a date to me. You say, I'm fine.
I'm fine.
That's right. And then hearing things that happened in other hospitals, the hospital down in Alabama where the man came in and shot the people in the hospital and things going on, I said, I'm fine is not a good answer.
That's right.
And so I worked for a group where they encourage us to seek out better ways to do things. And if you find a way, they will support you. And a course showed up on my computer called Mental Health Awareness. And it was a course you had to take over several weeks, several hours. And I said, maybe I need to take the course.
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Chapter 4: What strategies promote proactive leadership in SPD?
I'm giving you a report every month that I can make it say what I want it to say. Do you know if I'm telling you the truth?
So creating awareness before asking. Yes. Was a big thing for you. Okay.
Yes. And I call that laying the groundwork for what's going on. I had a scenario at a hospital that eventually was bought and built brand new somewhere else where we didn't have a cart washer to wash the carts. And we were literally washing them by hand. And you'd have to wash it, the whole cart, and then you have to dry it, Dr. J. Drying required that you be on your knees.
to drive the inside of a car. So, you know, most of our people in SPD are women. And we didn't understand, you know, I didn't understand why am I on my knees every day bending into a cart to dry it. And we had asked, it was on the budget. They were going to get a cart washer one day, kind of like Jesus is coming back. And so we were sitting there waiting for the crack in the sky.
It didn't happen. And I had two employees that became pregnant
and couldn't get on their knees.
They can't get down on their knees in the cart. So I waited, talking about laying the groundwork. SPD week came up, which they really didn't celebrate, but we celebrated. And I asked the hospital C-suite, could we celebrate and could we do a program called Walk a Mile in My Shoes?
Oh, okay.
They were like, okay. You know, just for one week. They were like, okay. So we set up stations for people to come in, get dressed out, come through SPD. But I went to the vice president who was over at SPD and said, would you come walk a mile today in the cut section? He was like, okay. He was a young man. Okay. Kind of like you, Dr. J. Okay. Okay.
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Chapter 5: How can SPD departments improve patient safety proactively?
black woman because i was black in that situation it was me just saying i just want you to see what i'm doing and why bam on the cart i think we need a cart washer you know i could be wrong sir i could be wrong and i think it's beautiful because even if we break down humanity what when you when you pull back the layers of someone's life it truly makes you
Look at them, not by their color, not by their demographic, not by their religion, not, you know, not by their culture. It makes you look at when I'm embraced in somebody's real reality and I'm forced to have to live like them in that moment or act like them or work like them. It brings about a space of humility.
And if I were to say the organizations that get it right, their leaders have a clear pulse on on humbleness and humility and empathy for every human being that's in that organization.
Yes. Yes.
They hurt when you hurt. Now, they they make they may can't get the funding or they may can't give you the raise, but they 1000 percent understand your disposition.
Yeah.
And the organizations that struggle, those organizations, you typically have leaders who lack empathy and true understanding of people's position. Oddly, because a lot of them were never in any of those positions, so they don't have a connecting point or two. If they were, they they were in a total different situation.
That doesn't allow for them to see yours because they may have been brought up right or they were trained in a great facility or they had all the top equipment. But when you find those leaders that literally had nothing and came up like they came from gas chambers down in SBD. Those are typically the leaders.
They may be tough, but they have a lot of empathy when it comes to what you're dealing with and what you're going through because they've been there before. It brings me to this. SGG, I hear you. I do. I do. But my manager doesn't think like this. I'm a supervisor. I'm a supervisor. My manager doesn't think like this. What can I do?
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Chapter 6: What is the importance of creating awareness in hospital leadership?
It's red tape to red to people that are unknown, unsure, or scared to bring up something that they don't know that they're unsure and scared about to bring up something that they don't know, unsure and scared about to leadership because they're technically supposed to know. because we put you in that position. So you're supposed to know.
And so when it comes to that, what I always, I always, I'm a believer of transparency is the highest form of accountability. If, if in the organization, I can't be in an organization where we can hold ourselves to be transparent.
I'm not going to, I'm not going to diminish my integrity and my profession that I believe in for anybody that doesn't want to be transparent about the problems that we're currently having within our organization. And and and with that, what I would say is you actually said something that's a beautiful gem.
And I promise you, it's probably worked more than 85 percent of the time that in turning around organizations, when we start to get people to see like this, it changes a lot of things. One, a lot of people don't take into account how scared your upline actually is. Hmm.
Two, a lot of people don't take into account what personal problems your upline may be dealing with, that they're scared to say something because if they lose their job, their family doesn't have any income.
Mm-hmm.
Their child needs benefits because they have a child that you don't know about that has an ailment. So they can't afford to speak up too much or cause any stir or any problems without all of the facts or without knowing that you have their back. So it takes me to number three, which is why what SGG said was absolutely gold. Gold. You have to be the type of partner.
That is OK with your upline winning on behalf of your efforts. It's called a team.
Yeah.
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Chapter 7: How can SPD leaders effectively communicate their needs to the C-suite?
A lot of people have trauma dealing with people who have microaggressions. A lot of people have trauma dealing with people who are passive aggressive. A lot of people have trauma with people who are extremely intelligent. because they were made fun of their entire life by extremely intelligent people.
So also that awareness piece that she talked about, a lot of it has to do with you becoming aware of who you're talking to and learning how to use your language to fit what their ears are used to listening to, which does cater to you to have to become multilingual and not just languages, but how people receive what you're saying.
And the better leader you become, the better you understand that you have to learn how to speak in a multitude of different dialects, even though you still speak in Spanish. I mean, English. You can still speak English and speak different dialects of English. You just have to learn the cadence of.
of who you're talking to in order to truly get the response that you're looking for from that person. So before we end this, SGG, you know we do it, talking to that one person. If you were to talk to that one person about leading without limits, what is one thing that you will give that person or two things that you will give someone who is trying to learn how to lead without limits?
Uh... If you're trying to learn to lead without limits, the first thing I think you have to do is to understand what your leadership style is. You have to know that. It says that somewhere we learn, know thyself. What is your leadership style? Are you truly a leader? I think we have lots of people. that are leading that are not leaders.
Now, what I have learned over time is that you can be taught to lead, but you have to first know thyself. I think that's very important. And as you lead, number two, are the things that you're doing as a leader, not only meeting the need for the corporation or the company, But if you were the follower, how would you feel about the way that you're leading?
So I'm the leader and I got my own process going. As a follower of that leader, how do I feel? How do you make me feel every day? Because see, human beings are like that. It's all in how you make them feel. If you make them feel that you care, if you make them feel that they are worthy, if you make them feel that they mean something, they will support you.
And as they support you, as you feel the same way about whoever's leading you, this goes up the line. In great places, I believe, that have great leadership, this is what happens. But it's all in how, number two, you make people feel. I worked at an institution where the mission statement said, we came to take care of you spiritually, mentally, and physically. And we used to say that has to
that has to correlate not just with, that has to consist of not just the patient, but the workers. And we felt that as leaders, they needed to understand how we felt, how they made us feel as the people who were actually in the trenches doing the work. And this particular institution understood their assignment. And as a leader, you have to understand your assignment.
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