Experts Outline Scope Reprocessing Enhancements to Reduce Infection Risks
In a recent ECRI webinar, experts discuss the eventual transition to sterilization.
Hospitals must implement additional measures to scope reprocessing procedures amid ongoing safety concern regarding instrumentation, according to patient safety experts. Anything less is unacceptable.
The advice came during a webinar in March hosted by the ECRI Institute entitled, “Endoscope Reprocessing: Are We Doing Enough to Protect Patients?”
Currently, there is no single, simple solution to ensure scopes are adequately reprocessed, but hospitals must identify and implement one of five existing enhanced reprocessing methodologies, according to William Rutala, MS, MPH, PhD. He is director of the hospital epidemiology, occupational health and safety program at the University of North Carolina (UNC) Health Care System in Chapel Hill and director of the Statewide Program for Infection Control and Epidemiology at the UNC School of Medicine. Rutala co-authored a commentary published in the June 2015 issue of Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology that outlined the following methodologies:
- Ethylene oxide (ETO) sterilization after high-level disinfection with periodic microbiologic surveillance
- Double high-level disinfection with periodic surveillance
- Quarantining scopes following high-level disinfection until negative culture is achieved
- Reprocessing with peracetic acid, followed by thorough rising and periodic surveillance
- High-level disinfection with periodic surveillance
“We must do more or additional outbreaks with continue,” Rutala said during the webinar. “I believe and we believe doing nothing is not an option.”
This is an excerpt from the June issue of the Patient Safety Monitor Journal. Subscribers can read the rest of the article here. Find out more about the journal, its benefits, and how to subscribe by clicking here.