Background and importance The Universal Kit (UKIT) is composed of sterile medical devices (MD) which are essentials for large surgical operations. The UKIT composition was established years ago to meet the demands of different specialties’ surgeons. UKIT is annually purchased by public tender procedure from specialised companies. Recently, we have noticed an increasing annual consumption which impacts on hospital expenditures.

Aim and objectives Evaluate relevance of UKIT qualitative and quantitative composition by listing and calculating economic losses of remaining non-used MD.

Material and methods This was a 1-month prospective observational study (from 31 May 2021 to 30 June 2021) conducted in the Central Operating Theatre (COT). The operating programme is equally allocated between certain surgical specialties: urology and neurosurgery, visceral surgery and gynaecology, traumatology and thoracic surgery. Checklist of UKIT components is manually filled during surgery procedures. Non-used MD are listed and economic value is calculated based on unit prices (UP) of public tender procedure attributed in 2020. The data were analysed using Excel.

Results The UKIT composition (UP=€24.01) consists of: two mounted scalpel blades 23 (UP=€0.032), 20 Gazin compresses (UP=€3.78) and five abdominal compresses (UP=€1.89). Each surgical department uses an average of 7 UKIT/week which corresponds to 371 UKIT/year. A total of 2226 UKIT (€53 446) are used per year in the COT.

The economic losses are estimated per year as: urology €293.09; neurosurgery €293.09; visceral surgery €81.99; gynaecology €81.99; thoracic surgery €222.60; traumatology €222.60. The overall economic losses are estimated at €1195.36 per year in COT, which represent 2.2% of the annual budget allocated to UKIT.

Conclusion and relevance UKIT qualitative composition seems relevant despite the short study duration. The UKIT quantitative composition should be adjusted according to surgical specialties in order to optimise hospital expenditures. The re-sterilisation of non-used MD could be an interesting alternative which should be examined and validated by the Committee of Medicines and MD.

Conflict of interest No conflict of interest