Health-care facilities such as hospitals perform many important procedures. However, the procedure that allows all other procedures to safely occur is cleaning and sterilizing. If a health-care facility isn’t a clean environment with sterile tools, then staff, patients, and visitors run the risk of experiencing procedural complications, illness, and more. Sterility assurance monitoring prevents this from happening. Keep reading to learn what it is.
The Steps of Sterility Assurance Monitoring
Sterility assurance monitoring involves several critical components. To begin the process, someone checks the initial sterilization process of medical products and tools. Once sterilized, they can package and store these products and tools to maintain their sterility. Staff can re-sterilize most tools after use following similar sterilization steps.
Sterilization Equipment
The best way to sterilize equipment is with sterilization equipment. Autoclaves, which work by using high-pressure steam to sterilize medical supplies, are among the most popular equipment options. After sterilization, staff should test medical products to ensure they are free from microorganisms. Testing involves using disinfectant wipes or swabs on the product or tool before packaging to ensure the item remains sterile.
Maintenance and Repair
Health-care facilities must ensure that their staff members are repairing and maintaining the equipment properly. Some maintenance problems may require professional assistance, and medical staff should know when to call in maintenance staff. Malfunctioning equipment or rapid wear-and-tear on instruments can result in cross-contamination of products, which is why medical staff need proper training on spotting problematic areas.
Sterilization Documentation
In addition to understanding how to spot maintenance concerns, staff should know how to document the sterilization process. With reliable documentation, facilities can better monitor sterilization progress and identify potential areas of concern. Staff members will need to record all maintenance, repairs, sterilization, sterilization monitoring, and test results.
In summary, sterility assurance monitoring is the process of sterilizing health-care tools and equipment, testing that sterility, packaging them, and documenting the process to ensure sterility. Every step of this process is essential for a clean, safe health-care facility.
If your facility needs equipment to start this assurance monitoring, Future Health Concepts provides medical sterilizer machines. These new and refurbished autoclaves will help you maintain the healthiest environment possible.