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G A S T R O E N T E R O L O G Y
Debbie Hunt, RN, BSN, administrator of the Saratoga Schenectady
Endoscopy Center in Burnt Hills, N.Y. "We use the same people to
reprocess and clean our scopes. They have a very good routine and
are very cautious with the expensive equipment. We have very few
repairs. We sometimes go the whole year with no repair," says
Michelle Fairley, RN, director of surgery at Iroquois Memorial
Hospital in Watseka, Ill.
11. Use an automatic scope reprocessor. More than 9 out of 10
(91.7%) of the 109 endoscopy center managers we recently surveyed
use AERs. Reasons most frequently cited: reduced human error and
man-hours, increased turnaround and assurance that scopes are properly disinfected. "It's the only way to make perfectly sure the scopes
are clean and decontaminated," says an assistant nurse manager.
"Manual reprocessing is very time-consuming," says a hospital infection preventionist. "With the auto reprocessor, we're able to do 2
scopes at once while the tech is manually pre-cleaning another
scope." Adds Carol Saxton, RN, surgery director of Decatur County
Hospital in Leon, Iowa, "While the machine is working on the scope,
we can turn the room over and deliver specimens."
AERs provide peace of mind for many managers by documenting
that high-level disinfection did in fact take place. "Computerized monitoring allows tracking of all cycle parameters, as well as patient information and reprocessing date and time," says Alexa Alessi, RN, BSN,
CGRN, assistant nurse manager at the NYU Medical Center. OSM
E-mail letters@outpatientsurg ery.net.
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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 | S E P T E M B E R 2013
