ties that don't have sufficient inventory to accommodate the volumes
they're striving for. The answer isn't to push people to move faster;
the answer is to make sure you have enough inventory to meet your
demands.
Why not certify?
All in all, reprocessing personnel do a remarkable job, but it seems
that all we ever hear about are the few instruments that have fallen
through the cracks. When you hear about a contaminated instrument
in the news, it was probably one of thousands that were processed
that day by that facility. And across the country, for every one that
fails, there are millions that don't fail. If you're looking at a Six Sigma
defect-free rate as the ultimate goal, for the most part that's what
we're reaching.
Still, I think we should require central sterile processing personnel to
be certified. I'm from one of the very few states (New Jersey) that
requires it. I also participate in the AORN Legal & Governmental Affairs
Workgroup, which is fighting for certification to be required in all
states. I'm encouraged that even in states where certification isn't
required by law, more and more hospitals are requiring it. There's an
increased awareness that people who are doing that job need to be
trained professionals in sterilization and disinfection practices, and
they need to be recognized as such. Certification validates it, and certi-
fied personnel are our best bet when it comes to reprocessing increas-
ingly complex instruments.
OSM
A U G U S T 2 0 1 6 • O U T PA T I E N TS U R G E R Y. N E T • 7 5
Ms. Horvath (ghorvath@ ecri.org) is a patient safety analyst and consultant for ECRI
Institute, a non-profit healthcare research organization in Plymouth Meeting, Pa.
By the time that instrument gets down to the sterilization
department, the contaminants coating the insides of the channel
are likely to be rock hard and almost impossible to remove.
