ECRI Institute has issued a top 10 list to give healthcare organizations a way of assessing their track record in patient safety. This list of top patient safety concerns is based on more than 300,000 safety incidents and includes a multitude of concerns that are common issues in many healthcare facilities.

Not surprisingly inadequate endoscope reprocessing has found its way onto this list due to its process oriented nature. Without a means of ensuring that each step in the process is completed properly, contaminated endoscopes could be used on patients exposing them to diseases such as hepatitis C, HIV, and tuberculosis.

So how can you ensure that your healthcare organization prevents this from happening? ECRI stresses the importance of adhering to and documenting a multi-step procedure. This involves training staff on the defined protocols, and providing them with adequate space, equipment, instructional materials as well as sufficient time to perform each step correctly.

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Far too often, we hear news stories about potential infection or HIV outbreaks at hospitals and endoscopy clinics. Every time the cause is the same; inadequate reprocessing of endoscopes. Nearly 2,500 women who underwent biopsies at the Miramichi Regional Hospital's colposcopy clinic in New Brunswick may be at risk of HIV and other infections because their sterilization procedures weren't always followed.

Adhering to reprocessing procedures is critical, however without adequate reprocessing equipment it's easy for busy staff members to miss critical steps in the process. It's extremely important to have user-friendly products in then reprocessing department that automate the manual process to reduce human error and risks of infection.

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In 2011, the FDA along with the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) developed a list of the most common themes that lead to the problems with endoscope reprocessing. These themes include a lack of regard for the human factor in the reprocessing department, unstandardized processes, and unclear understanding of the consequences related to improper reprocessing, to name a few. AAMI's themes are still just as prominent in the Healthcare Industry today, making it no surprise that for the fourth year in a row, inadequate endoscope reprocessing has been included on ECRI's Top 10 Health Technology Hazards Report. On the 2013 report, endoscope reprocessing was listed at number 8.

Check out the article below for more information. It provides tools for identifying reprocessing issues, and recommendations from AAMI and ECRI.

Read the full article here...