Sterilization & Disinfection
Top 10 Patient Safety Concerns for 2018
As healthcare strives to become an industry of high-reliability organizations, identifying problems proactively is key. ECRI Institute’s annual Top 10 Patient Safety Concerns for Healthcare Organizations list highlights looming patient safety challenges and offers resources for addressing them. In selecting this year’s list, ECRI Institute relied on data regarding events…
Validate and verify medical devices to ensure safety
Sometimes surgeons ask to have nonmedical devices sterilized, such as spoons, hockey pucks, and fish hooks. Healthcare staff may want to accommodate their requests, but there are times when they cannot do so. A central service (CS) should only sterilize medical devices that have undergone validation testing, which demonstrates that…
Effectiveness of reprocessing reusable flexible bronchoscopes
Editor's Note In a study on the effectiveness of reprocessing flexible bronchoscopes presented June 14 by Ofstead and Associates at the Association for Professionals in Infection Control’s annual conference in Minneapolis, the majority of bronchoscopes were found to be contaminated and damaged even when cleaned and high-level disinfected according to…
Endoscope fluid, contaminants linger after faulty drying
What does it take to get endoscopes dry? That is the question that prompted a new study on endoscope drying effectiveness by Ofstead & Associates (St Paul, Minnesota). “We asked that question after a study we did 2 years ago found that increasing the automated endoscope reprocessor [AER] drying cycle…
San Diego hospital in ‘Immediate Jeopardy’ for dirty surgical equipment
Editor's Note After a routine survey, the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) declared “Immediate Jeopardy” at UC San Diego’s Hillcrest campus because of cleaning issues with its surgical equipment, the June 8 10News reports. A CDPH report says that deficiencies found included: trays of surgical equipment with brown stains…
AAMI releases new standard on sterilization quality management
The Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) has released a sterilization standard on quality management for central service (CS) sterile processing. The new standard, ANSI/AAMI ST90: 2017 Processing of Health Care Products: Quality Management Systems for Processing in Health Care Facilities, provides guidelines to support quality management systems…
Study: Residual moisture, waterborne pathogens found inside flexible endoscopes
Editor's Note Inadequate reprocessing and insufficient drying contributed to retained fluid and contamination found inside flexible endoscopes in this study led by noted epidemiologist Cori L. Ofstead. Of 45 endoscopes analyzed at 3 hospitals, fluid was detected in 49%, and the prevalence of moisture varied significantly by site (5%, 83%,…
FDA issues letter to healthcare providers on risks of endoscope connectors
Editor's Note The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on April 18 alerted healthcare providers and facilities about the risk of cross-contamination with 24-hour, multipatient use connectors used in gastrointestinal (GI) endoscopy. Endoscope connectors are small accessories used to connect the auxiliary water channel to a water source and irrigation tubing.…
FDA: System 83 Plus AERs complete validation testing
Editor's Note The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on April 10 notified healthcare facilities that Custom Ultrasonics (Ivyland, Pennsylvania) has completed validation testing of the System 83 Plus (ie, System 83 Plus, System 83 Plus 2, and System 83 Plus 9) automated endoscope reprocessors (AERs) with specific duodenoscopes. The FDA…
Denver hospital breach may have exposed patients to HIV, hepatitis
Editor's Note Patients at Porter Adventist Hospital in Denver may be at risk for HIV or hepatitis after the hospital discovered a surgical instrument sterilization breach, the April 5 LiveScience reports. The process for precleaning surgical instruments was found to be inadequate, which may have put patients who had orthopedic…
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