Antisepsis, Disinfection and Sterilization
Concurrent Education Session - 60 minutes
Craig Wallace, BS Biochemistry, BS Microbiology
Senior Technical Specialist
3M Healthcare
St. Paul, Minnesota
3M Health Care: Employment
James Davis, MSN, RN, HEM, CCRN-K, CIC, FAPIC
Senior Infection Prevention Analyst
ECRI Institute
Telford, Pennsylvania
Nothing to disclose
Effective disinfection or sterilization of medical devices is a critical element of a comprehensive IPC program. The sterilization processes used by medical device manufacturers for sterile single-use medical devices are tightly controlled and regulated. Device reprocessing in the healthcare facility, however, is a complex task performed in a challenging environment and is more susceptible to variability due to system, equipment, and human factors. Reprocessing failures can, and do, occur as documented in the literature.
This session will provide the participants with an understanding of the key factors that can affect the efficacy of the most common HLD and terminal sterilization processes used in healthcare facilities. The quality management system and quality control tools described in current industry standards and recommended practices (AAMI, CDC, APIC, AORN, SGNA) will be reviewed to provide guidance on how to develop an effective quality control program based on risk analysis for device reprocessing in the IP’s healthcare facility.
Finally, case studies of HLD and terminal sterilization process failures will be discussed, with recommendations on how to use available tools to investigate and resolve a device reprocessing failure.