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its last legs and you expect to be in the market soon.
For help sorting through the sales pitches and promises, we talked
to 2 experts from ECRI Institute, an independent, nonprofit health-
care research organization in Plymouth Meeting, Pa., about what fac-
tors they think are true game-changers when it comes to washers, and
about some traps to avoid. If you're thinking about an upgrade, here
are 5 factors to consider.
Energy efficiency
All manufacturers are trying to be more environmen-
tally savvy, developing more and more ways to save
water and electricity. "Resource conservation is No.
1, right now," says Debra Ann Maleski, MBA, a senior
healthcare consultant at ECRI.
"You'll see if you go to vendor websites, everybody's going green,"
says Christopher Schabowsky, PhD, ECRI's program manager for
group purchasing organizations. "The LEED (Leadership in Energy &
Environmental Design) Initiative is out front, encouraging facilities to
think green. It's a big, step-by-step process, so a lot of manufacturers
are trying to tailor their offerings to fit with the initiative."
For example, some washers offer shorter cycles based on the kinds
of instruments or the number of instruments being cleaned. Newer
machines can adjust resource allocation accordingly and "save sub-
stantial money on operating costs," says Ms. Maleski. Instead of run-
ning a full cycle when you don't need to, just set the washer for a
quarter load or a half load and start saving. Some automatically
adjust, based on the size of the load.
"Vendors should be able to document their different cycles," says
Ms. Maleski. "They should be able to tell you how much time each
takes and what the volume of instruments is with each, whether it can
S T E R I L E P R O C E S S I N G
