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S T E R I L E
P R O C E S S I N G
And that means, sometimes, flashing will be inevitable. There
won't be enough sets to accommodate back-to-back-to-back cases.
Something will get dropped. Someone from sterile reprocessing will
be out sick.
Should everything be flashed? Absolutely not. But the Association
for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) and the
Association of periOperative Registered Nurses (AORN) standards
allow for the practice — and, done correctly, it poses no additional
risk to patients. Here's a look at some of the cornerstones of a good
flashing policy, and how your choice of rigid flash containers can
enhance those principles.
1. Proper decontamination
Everything in sterile reprocessing — regular steam cycles, high-level
disinfection, low-temperature sterilization and flashing — begins with
thorough decontamination. If an instrument has been decontaminated
properly, you can proceed with meeting the rest of the processing
parameters with confidence. I can't stress enough that proper decontamination is the most important step in any kind of processing.
2. Sterilization parameters
There are 2 flash steam sterilization guidelines, depending on your
autoclave type:
• Gravity displacement. Three minutes for metal, non-porous
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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 | N O V E M B E R 2012
