Are Your Surgical Patients Safe? Risks and Opportunities in Sterile Processing
A variety of methods exist for procedures to avoid all types of hospital-acquired infections. However, the most common over looked department in these methods and focus areas is Sterile Processing. Sterile processing of instruments has been a routine part of hospital operations for decades. However, given as many as 300,000 patients in U.S. hospitals suffer from surgical site infections every year, some gaps remain. There is also widespread concern about properly sterilizing the increasingly complex instruments and equipment now used in treating surgical and non-surgical patients.
Nevertheless, confidence in the organizations sterile processing departments and processes can be accomplished and the risk of infection from improperly processed instruments can be reduced, if not eliminated if protocols are followed in a way that is a good fit for a hospital’s management structure and corporate culture.
Please join Stephen Cuthbertson, Director of Risk Management, Customer Service, Performance Improvement, Regulatory Compliance & Case Management of College Medical Center in Long Beach California, and Jeremy Gibson-Roark, a lead clinical and certification surveyor with DNV GL Healthcare, as they provide significant insights into improving sterile processing and surgical safety and outcomes.
