ConCensis

About ConCensis

ConCensis is a sterile processing podcast from Censis Technologies. Each episode explores how hospitals and health systems can improve efficiency, safety, and visibility in their Sterile Processing Departments (SPDs). Hear insights from SPD leaders, healthcare professionals, and Censis experts on the latest tools, productivity hacks, and perioperative best practices.

Publisher

A Sterile Processing Podcast from Censis

Category

health & fitness · science

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

9 Dec 2021

Latest episode

18 Sept 2026

Latest episodes

80 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   18 Sept 2026

   Leadership in SPD: Real Stories From Techs Turned Leaders

   Sterile processing departments run on technical skill. Tray builds, scanning practices, sterilization cycles and turnaround times are all measurable, teachable and certifiable. Leadership is none of those things. It does not appear on an org chart until someone is promoted into it, and by then the behaviors that make a good leader have either formed or they have not. Most sterile processing leaders come up through the bench, which means the profession develops its leaders informally, in the middle of a shift, without a curriculum. The cost of that shows up later. Technicians who move quickly and produce volume are frequently promoted for exactly those traits, then struggle with change management, interdepartmental friction and the expectations of an operating room that wants everything back sooner. Teams inherit the gap. Turnover follows, and so does the quiet assumption that leadership is something a person either has or does not. The question is not who has leadership potential. It is whether a department recognizes and develops it before a title is attached. How do sterile processing technicians recognize the leadership they are already practicing, and what does it take to grow it into a career? Welcome to ConCensis. In this episode, host Daniel Litwin, the Voice of B2B, sits down with Lucretia Henderson, Customer Success Manager at Censis Technologies, and Kristina Bowser, Senior Customer Success Manager at Censis Technologies, to examine how leadership forms inside sterile processing departments. Together, they trace their own paths from the surgical and sterile processing bench into leadership, and discuss what unofficial leadership looks like on the floor, how trust is earned before a title exists, what separates a competent leader from a great one and which certifications and experiences actually move a career forward. The conversation offers practical perspective for technicians considering the next step, for leaders identifying and developing successors and for anyone handed responsibility before they felt ready for it. What You'll Learn... Why leadership in sterile processing frequently begins as an unofficial role, formed by the technician who asks why, volunteers to precept new hires and carries concerns forward on behalf of peers.How formative experiences well outside the department, from military service to a rural upbringing and high school leadership programs, build the discipline and relationship skills that later define a leadership style.The role subject matter knowledge plays in earning trust, and why confidence in the work often carries a new leader through moments when confidence in themselves has not arrived yet.What separates good leaders from great ones, from observing a department quietly enough to see where help is needed to absorbing criticism on behalf of a team, and the missteps that stall a promising leadership track.Practical steps for technicians who want to advance, including joining committees, seeking a mentor, pursuing Lean Six Sigma or project management credentials and making the ambition known to leadership.Why the next generation of sterile processing leaders will need fluency in their own department's data as hospital margins tighten and teams are asked to produce more with less. About the Guests Lucretia Henderson is a Customer Success Manager at Censis Technologies, supporting facilities across the central United States. She entered surgical technology through military service and later moved into sterile processing, where she spent much of her career on the education side, building awareness of standards and best practices among frontline teams and working to close the gap between sterile processing and the operating room. She holds sterile processing certifications along with Lean Six Sigma credentials focused on process improvement in healthcare. Kristina Bowser is a Senior Customer Success Manager at Censis Technologies, working with hospitals across the central and southwestern United States to sharpen workflows and support their teams. She began her career as a surgical technologist, earned a bachelor's degree in healthcare administration and served as a surgical technology program director before stepping into sterile processing as an SPD manager and later a business operations manager. She led her own department through the transition from paper to electronic tracking.

2. 

   13 Aug 2026

   From Experience to Impact: A Preview of CtUC Virtual 2026

   This episode's guests: Melissa Higgins, Director of Customer Advancement at Censis TechnologiesJacob Long, Director of Sales Engineering at Censis TechnologiesOlivia Fistek, Regional Account Manager at Censis Technologies Sterile processing has become one of the fastest changing environments in the hospital. Instruments that were once straightforward now arrive with multilayered assembly requirements, robotic components and manufacturer instructions for use that change without notice. The technology used to reprocess and sterilize them has grown just as complex. What a technician needed to know five years ago is not what the role demands today, and the list keeps growing. Every new service line, every new specialty and every new device adds to the body of knowledge a department is expected to carry. That pace creates a quiet gap. Departments are held to evolving standards and regulatory expectations while the day-to-day work of keeping cases moving never pauses, which leaves little room for structured learning. Compliance strains first, then confidence. There is also a second gap that receives less attention. Knowing the correct practice is one challenge. Capturing it digitally, configuring software to match a specific workflow and proving it later is a separate one. Education has to close both. How can a sterile processing team turn three days of education into changes that hold up back in the department? Welcome to ConCensis. In this episode, host Daniel Litwin, the Voice of B2B, sits down with Melissa Higgins, Director of Customer Advancement at Censis Technologies, Jacob Long, Director of Sales Engineering at Censis Technologies, and Olivia Fistek, Regional Account Manager at Censis Technologies, to preview CtUC Virtual 2026 and the thinking behind this year's theme, From Experience to Impact. Together, they discuss the three-day tiered track structure, the industry topics shaping this year's agenda, the live question-and-answer format, the peer collaboration that happens between attendees and the first major software refresh Censis has undertaken in years. The conversation offers sterile processing professionals a clear picture of what the September event covers, how to plan their three days and which conversations are worth showing up for. What You'll Learn... Why continuing education functions as an operational requirement rather than a professional perk, as instrument complexity and manufacturer instructions for use change faster than most departments can absorb on their own.How the three-day tiered structure splits into a general track, a leadership track and a technician track so attendees can build an agenda around their actual scope of work.The role water quality is playing in this year's agenda, and why industry experts leading the regulatory conversation were brought in to address it directly.What the first major software refresh in years brings to the platform, including an updated user interface and changes to how CensiTrac Intelligence handles metrics and KPI reporting.How attendees reach Censis expertise during the event, from live question-and-answer sessions and clinical educators fielding questions in real time to one-on-one time with a customer success manager.Why the peer conversation is often the highest-value part of the event, as a nine-tray ambulatory surgery center and a thousand-bed trauma hospital discover they are solving the same problems very differently. About the Guests Melissa Higgins is Director of Customer Advancement at Censis Technologies, where she leads the clinical education team. Her team delivers Service Plus, the add-on subscription that helps customers examine their workflow and get more out of the software they already own. She treats CtUC as the flagship presentation Censis gives its customers each year, pairing outside industry standards with internal guidance on system utilization. Jacob Long serves as Director of Sales Engineering at Censis Technologies, where he prepares and supports the commercial team and works across clinical education, implementation and product. His earlier work training customers in person gave him a view of departments at every scale, from single-procedure outpatient clinics to thousand-bed trauma centers running thirty rooms and eighty technicians. He watches closely for how customers configure the same software to fit very different worlds. Olivia Fistek is Regional Account Manager at Censis Technologies, working on the sales side with facilities bringing Censis in for the first time and with existing customers expanding their portfolio. She partners closely with the customer success team and focuses on keeping facilities supported as their hospital needs evolve. Her vantage point comes from being in customer doors regularly and hearing which challenges are surfacing right now.

3. 

   30 Jul 2026

   Beyond the Spreadsheet: SPD Leaders on Reporting Reimagined

   Reporting is one of the most foundational functions in a sterile processing department, and for years it has also been one of the most manual. Answering a single question about productivity, throughput or case readiness has often meant running several reports, exporting the results into spreadsheets and merging the data by hand before any of it could be presented. The information existed. It simply was not assembled into a form teams could act on in the moment. That gap carries real operational cost. Time spent gathering and reconciling data is time not spent interpreting it, and every manual merge introduces the possibility of error or misrepresentation. Staffing requests, resource conversations and committee reporting all slow down when leaders must first defend where their numbers came from. For many SPD teams, the constraint was never the availability of data. It was the time and the confidence required to trust it. What changes for a sterile processing team when reporting becomes centralized, visual and available in real time? Welcome to ConCensis. In this episode, host Daniel Litwin, the Voice of B2B, sits down with Alma Mendivil, Director of the Sterile Processing Department at University Medical Center of El Paso, and Hana Rogers, Quality Assurance Manager of the Central Sterile Processing Department at Boston Medical Center, for the show's first cross-leader roundtable. Pairing a director's leadership lens with a day-to-day operational view from the floor, the conversation compares the old reporting workflow against their experience with CensiTrac Intelligence and traces the downstream effects on decision-making, manual workload, team morale and collaboration with partner departments. The discussion offers practical perspective for SPD leaders evaluating what they should expect from a reporting tool and how better reporting reshapes far more than reporting itself. What You'll Learn... Why answering basic operational questions once required multiple reports and manual spreadsheet work, and what that pattern cost teams in both time and accuracy. How the ability to see a report build in real time shifts effort away from preparing data and toward interpreting it. The new reporting use cases these leaders unlocked, including prep and pack dwell time, five-day case forecasting, daily huddle notes and employee performance metrics. Why a single trusted source of data changes the tone of conversations with hospital leadership, operating room partners and outside committees such as infection control. How real-time visibility into productivity supports more timely recognition, coaching and staffing adjustments across shifts.What questions SPD leaders should ask before adopting a reporting tool, and what long-term impact to expect as surgical volumes continue to grow. About the Guests Alma Mendivil is Director of the Sterile Processing Department at University Medical Center of El Paso, one of the busiest medical centers on the southern border. She oversees departmental operations in a high-volume environment and led her team's reporting transition alongside her department manager and floor educator, giving her a direct view of how reporting shapes staffing decisions, leadership reporting and cross-department collaboration. Hana Rogers is Quality Assurance Manager of the Central Sterile Processing Department at Boston Medical Center, a major academic medical center in the Northeast. Her work centers on the day-to-day operational realities of a high-inventory department, including throughput visibility, instrument movement and the practical workflow effects of how reporting is built and used on the floor.

Who has been a guest on ConCensis

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Sydney McWaters
• Trey Sneed
• Josh Meyer
• Brenda “Jan” Prudent
• Chelissa Gray

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

4.8 / 5

4 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

2 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 48 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

82

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

32

Contact ConCensis

Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.