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Academic Degrees/Certification
Graduated from Accredited Surgical Technologist School Naval School of Health Science Portsmouth, Virginia (Surgical Technologist)
Certified Registered Central Service Technician (CRCST)
Email: Belinda.avila@nih.gov
Phone: 301-435-4096
Biosketch:
Belinda Avila is currently the Sterile Processing Supervisor at the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) Clinical Center (CC) in the Nursing Department. In this capacity, she is responsible for first line supervision of all central sterile activities including staff scheduling, shift management, creating and implementing staff orientation, conducting staff training, preparing continuing education for staff members. Ms. Avila also coordinates and monitors all central sterile processing functions such as decontamination, preparation, packaging, sterilization of surgical instruments, high level disinfection of medical of flexible scopes, probes, and medical devices, ordering of all sterile processing supplies and equipment, and coordination of the pickup of dirty and drop off of all instruments that have been sterilized or high level disinfected back to the customer.
Ms. Avila joined NIH in 2005 since that time she has led several major initiatives to include building a Materials and Inventory Control module for the department's Perioperative Information System resulting in the development of par levels and re-order points for over 4,000 materials, as well as surveillance metrics for operating room equipment, surgical instruments, and drugs. She also led an initiative to introduce Prime Vendor to the Operating Rooms ordering mechanisms. This program is a streamlined acquisition method whereby Prime Vendor contractors maintain stock of various contracted items, such as surgical supplies, and offer items from multiple contractors under a single order. The program reduced the amount of man power and paper work associated with placing an order for a surgical item that is ordered on a weekly basis and is over the government spending thresh hold of $3,000 at the time. The program also reduced the amount of overnight orders and instances where supplies have had to be borrowed from other hospitals.
Prior to joining NIH, Ms. Avila served in the United States Navy as Surgical Technologist and Supply Petty Officer for the Operating Room at the National Naval Medical Center. During this time, she deployed once as part of Baltic Challenge - a multinational military exercise in the Baltic Sea near Lithuania on board the USNS Comfort (TAH-20) Hospital Ship – and again as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom on board the USNS Comfort (TAH-20) Hospital Ship.