M A R C H 2 0 1 7 O U T P A T I E N TS U R G E R Y. N E T 2 7
ergonomics.
A staff member delivers soiled instruments to the workstations. After clean-
ing, the attendants load the instruments into a wash rack that sits immediately
to the right of the washing stations. A large conveyor belt then moves the instru-
ments into one of the department's automated pass-through washers, which sep-
arate the decontamination area from the clean space.
The washed instruments are offloaded from the washers, reassembled into
complete sets and packaged in blue-wrapped trays or rigid sterilization contain-
ers. We use equipment attendants to help organize the cleaned instruments and
sort through the rigid containers, so reprocessing techs can focus on instrument
tray assembly. The techs work at 6 stainless steel instrument assembly worksta-
tions that are height adjustable to improve the ergonomic comfort of the various
workers who cycle through the area during 3 daily shifts. Among the supplies
kept at each workstation are the barcode tags that techs attach to every wrapped
tray and rigid sterilization container before scanning the set into our instrument
tracking software.
From the assembly stations, instrument trays are transferred onto a steriliza-
tion cart and delivered to 1 of 4 pass-through sterilization autoclaves, which
provide a physical barrier between clean and sterile items and essentially
guarantee the tools on either side of that dividing line never cross paths.
Sterilized surgical trays and rigid sterilization containers are unloaded from
the autoclaves and delivered to a nearby 9,000-square-foot sterile storage area,
where they're organized and color-coded by specialty. When it comes to organ-
ization, we strive to eliminate unnecessary movement and searching for need-
ed instruments sets.
More space than might you think
Whether you're redesigning an existing space or building new, look beyond your
current reprocessing needs. Will you have enough space if you begin to centralize
