The sight is common and, for most, no cause for alarm: At the supermarket, the gas station, the fast-food restaurant and scores of other public places, people are dressed in scrubs, revealing their place of employment to be a hospital or other health-care setting.

While this particular garment display may seem innocuous, for UC Davis Health System, it represents a potentially large and continuing cost. And, while many employees may not know it, it also represents a violation of policy.

Reducing and controlling the cost of supplies is a major priority of Thomas Moore, the health system's director of supply chain management, who began his duties July 1.

"We already get a good price on most of our supplies, so we have to concentrate on other areas, such as utilization and waste," said Moore.

"Employees need to be more aware that there's a significant cost associated with routine supplies. Wasteful practices are draining our budget. If we're wasting money on those things, it leaves less money for other purposes," he added.

Although Moore is looking to achieve savings across the gamut of supply items, an area to which he will be paying immediate attention involves scrubs and linen.

The health system spent about $114,000 in fiscal year 2007-08 to replace scrubs missing from its inventory. Moore believes that many scrubs go missing because employees take them home and keep them there, even though this practice violates health system policy.

"You see a lot of employees going to and coming from work in their scrubs," Moore said.

Health system policy 2906 states, "University-provided scrubs (regardless of funding source) will not be worn to or from residences." It also states, "Removal of university-owned and/or provided surgical scrub uniforms from university property or clinics may constitute theft. Staff that are discovered to be transporting or wearing university-owned scrubs may be subject to disciplinary action."

The complete policy is at http://intranet.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/policies/hosp/2906.HTM.

Moore is considering a number of approaches to reducing the health system's replacement costs for scrubs. One is to institute a system for monitoring the health system's inventory of scrubs. Steps that could be taken to provide monitoring include:

• Creation of designated "scrub rooms" accessible only by card keys.
• Requiring employees to turn in a scrub garment before receiving another.
• Using video cameras to monitor the scrub inventory.
• Issuing staff a fixed quantity of scrubs for the year, and requiring them to assume responsibility for laundering and otherwise maintaining them.

The health system spends $2 million annually to replace or clean linen, with $1.2 million spent on cleaning, and $700,000 to $800,000 required to purchase replacements for linens that are taken, discarded or damaged.

The cost to replace bath towels alone was $86,000 in the last fiscal year, Moore said, and misuse of these items is a major cause. Employees frequently use towels to clean up spills and stains, and when they do, the towels cannot be cleaned adequately and must be discarded. Towels often are also the item of choice for responding to flooding.

In cases of flooding, Moore said, many staff members reflexively "use all of the towels they can find, instead of using a wet-vac or a mop. What ruins towels is using them to clean up grease or other spills. We have rags for that."

Moore said the need for the health system to control costs and waste associated with scrubs and linen is urgent.

"Our costs are escalating," he said. "Our contract with the current contractor for scrubs and linen is up in February. We need to get a handle on utilization, because these costs will increase along with the higher fees in the new contract."