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B U Y I N G
I N S T R U M E N T S
LONG-LASTING INSTRUMENTS
3 Tips for Care and Handling
A
s a nurse and in my current role
as a sales rep, I've seen firsthand
the damage that can occur to
instruments. The cure? A culture of care
and safe handling.
1. Handle with care. Don't just chuck everything in 1 tray. Arrange
instruments carefully to protect points and edges from becoming dull.
2. Put like metals together for reprocessing. If you've invested in titanium
instruments, by all means, reprocess them as a group. And put your stainless steel together. Mixing and matching metals will result in electrolysis,
which causes staining and pitting. Mixing can result in unintended damage
(for example, dings to the carbon edging on titanium scissors), because the
metals are of different hardness or composition.
3. Train all how to care for and handle instruments. Remind your surgeons that, yes, mallets, osteotomes and rongeurs do naturally take a
beating, but you can tell when they've been using a drill as a hammer.
Don't treat your central sterile staff like dishwashers; encourage them to
get certification, even if your state doesn't require it, and arrange the surgical schedule so that they can keep a steady flow, rather than constantly fighting logjams. — Jude Johnston, RN, CNOR
Ms. Johnston (judejohnston@verizon.net), an independent surgical sales
rep, is a former OR nurse and manager.
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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
