4 0
S U P P L E M E N T T O O U T P AT 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 AY 2 0 1 4
level disinfection. Has the manual cleaning reduced bioburden enough, or
would levels render high-level disinfection ineffective? The tests might be best
applied to spot-check individual scopes or to test the performance of new staff
during orientation or veterans during quarterly competencies.
Failure at
the front line
A study in the journal
Infection Control and
Hospital Epidemiology
(
tinyurl.com/nkrxgzk
) notes
that many endoscopy-asso-
ciated outbreaks are relat-
ed to breaches in repro-
cessing techniques, and
says it's imperative that
cleaning and disinfection
be performed correctly.
The study's authors also
point out that AERs offer
several advantages over
manual reprocessing,
including the automation
and standardization of
reprocessing steps.
The study says the inci-
dence of endoscope-asso-
ciated infection, while gen-
erally underreported, is
very low: approximately 1
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