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E N D O S C O P E
R E P R O C E S S I N G
great pride in ensuring every scope is reprocessed correctly every time.
Expect nothing less from your staff.
Put all current nurses through yearly evaluations on proper scope
reprocessing and have new hires spend an entire week working in the
reprocessing area. That way they're prepared to fill in after hours or
on the weekends (if you're running an endo unit that runs 24/7 like
mine) or if you're short on full-time techs for a few hours or days. The
training also gives nurses a much-needed appreciation for the challenges your techs face on a daily basis.
2. Safe transport
When techs pull a scope out of hanging storage, have them move a marker (as you can see in the picture, we hang a plastic wristband on ours) to
the next scope. It's a simple process that lets techs know which scope to
grab and ensures all scopes rotate through regular use. Also apply plastic
zip-ties to scopes that note the date they're reprocessed. If the scopes
aren't used within 2 weeks of that date, reprocess them again before putting them back into circulation. Only physicians should remove the zipties in procedure rooms, so assume scopes without tags are dirty and in
need of reprocessing.
Always transport scopes in closed containers. We use hard plastic
bins lined with chux pads, which protect scopes and contain potential
contaminants. Techs should place clean scopes on the chux pads, put
lids in place and bring the containers to procedure rooms. After proce1 1 6
O U T PAT I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E O N L I N E | M A R C H 2013
