Outpatient Surgery Magazine

Queasy Feeling - April 2017 - Subscribe to Outpatient Surgery Magazine

Outpatient Surgery Magazine, providing current information on Surgical Services, Surgical Facility Administration, Outpatient Surgery News and Trends, OR Excellence and more.

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A P R I L 2 0 1 7 • O U T PA T I E N TS U R G E R Y. N E T • 1 1 3 Gone Wrong Endoscope Reprocessing T he ceaseless wave of endoscope reprocessing mishaps making headlines across the country has hammered home the point that you can't reprocess a dirty scope. Proper manual cleaning is a challenge under normal cir- cumstances, but nearly impossible when you pressure reprocessing techs to hurry up because a patient is waiting for his procedure to begin, or if you expect techs to get scopes cleaned, dis- infected and back in a procedure room in less than an hour. Scope techs essentially work blindfolded — Here's a brush, now remove the bioburden that you can't see inside the scope. They're told to brush a scope's internal channels until the brush they're using appears clean. Techs must rotate brushes 360 degrees as they clean scopes' internal channels, but I haven't seen that attention to detail in • BY DESIGN Difficult-to-clean duodenoscopes have been linked to several deadly outbreaks of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Dartmouth–Hitchcock Medical Center Recent outbreaks shine light on the dirty truth about the scope cleaning practices at facilities across the country. Frank Myers, MA, CIC, FAPIC | San Diego, Calif.

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