In a hospital or healthcare delivery environment, you can?t see if something is sterile, nor can you test for something that is sterile. Because once you test for it, it?s no longer sterile and can?t be used.

Mandatory reporting simply means more scrutiny in all of the practices around reducing infection. Sterilization is considered a sentinel event around surgical site infections. So for a facility to be able to document and prove that they did all of those things the right way via an electronic record keeping system is a tremendous value for a facility.

It?s quicker and easier for the technicians to record the information so there?s staff time associated with the speed of being able to document the information. From a management side, many facilities will do a manual tally of information monthly off of their paper systems. And an electronic system saves managers a tremendous amount of time in doing the data collection and analysis to determine department productivity and efficiency information.

I think the majority of the hospitals are still using paper-based [systems]. But many of them are migrating into an electronic record keeping program because they see the benefits of that. The other big piece that contributes to that is hospital IT systems have made significant improvements in the last few years. If we were talking five years ago, not a lot of sterile processing departments had computers in them. Now nearly all of them have computers in areas beyond just the manager?s office. Sterile processing departments really recognize, as we all do in both our personal lives and professional lives, the benefits of using IT technology to make our jobs easier.

Westin's move to completely smoke free fully supports our brand positioning of renewal and creating a healthier environment for guests and employees alike. We're giving guests, groups, and associates what they want, and our brand and our owner/operators are gaining a distinct competitive advantage in the process.

Asia is an ideal growth environment ... with competitively-priced quality healthcare service in major tourist cities.