"extremely confident," and 11% admitted they were "not as confident as
[they'd] like to be." The other 60% are confident, just not extremely so,
perhaps because reprocessing is such a difficult chore.
To wit, one-third of our respondents agreed with this statement:
"The large number of tasks involved in high-level disinfection of
endoscopes is so complex that it's difficult to be confident that it's
being done right every time."
But lack of confidence in the specifics doesn't seem to translate into
a lack of confidence overall. "This indicates a misunderstanding of the
nature of risk," says Ms. Ofstead, who reviewed our survey results.
And the risks, she adds, go well beyond the complexity of the process,
no matter how diligent your employees are.
"Human factors and skipped steps are only part of the problem," she
adds. "Clinicians often continue to use scopes that have critical
defects, and residual contamination is more common when scopes are
damaged. Furthermore, outbreaks have occurred even in cases when
no breaches were identified."
Cutting it close?
We also asked whether respondents see themselves in this statement:
"We place a high value on efficiency and throughput in our facility,
which means that we may occasionally be in danger of cutting it a
little too close when it comes to endoscope reprocessing."
A huge majority (82%) disagree, insisting, in effect, that the empha-
sis on speed never compromises safety (14% acknowledge that yes,
emphasis on speed is a concern, and 4% say they're not sure).
"Efficiency is never paid for by shortcuts," asserts one respondent.
But, as Ms. Ofstead points out, many also say they rely on 1 or 2
"particularly diligent individuals" to make sure things are done proper-
ly. And several suggest that their efforts could be compromised with-
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