top and pushes steam through the instruments. Using vacuum pushes
the steam more forcefully through the trays. It penetrates more effi-
ciently and gets into the nooks and crannies of the instruments and
does so in less time.
For example, the
dental drills used at
Omaha (Neb.)
Surgical Center —
which have a lot of
moving parts — were
locking up because of
being sterilized over
and over. They often
needed to be repaired
or replaced.
"Our dental drills
needed to be steril-
ized for 15 minutes in
gravity. By switching
to vacuum, we were
able to cut that down
to 4 minutes," says
Melissa Sawyer, CST,
assistant OR manager
at Omaha Surgical
Center. "Now, they're
just not exposed to
the high temperatures
as long. That seems
to have made the
9 4 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E • S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 9
instrument channel dryer
