cern here is cost. Buying costlier single-use scopes or power drills
when reusable devices still are the norm seems unconvincing at first.
Plus, with the addition of increasing the weight of hazardous waste,
disposal costs would inevitably increase for any facility wanting to
make these single-use devices the primary resource.
"I would definitely need to see some cost-benefit analysis before
making that kind of switch," says orthopedic surgeon and sports
medicine specialist David Geier, MD, of Mount Pleasant, S.C. "The
benefits don't seem to outweigh the costs, and sterile reprocessing
these days is pretty thorough."
Indirectly, however, the idea behind going disposable could poten-
tially save in other areas. Without the need to go through reprocess-
ing, single-use colonoscopes, for example, which are notoriously diffi-
cult and cumbersome to reprocess, could save the average sterile pro-
cessing department (SPD) much needed space, time and resources.
SPDs are not revenue-generating departments, so the costs incurred
by falling behind a high case volume and the converse savings
secured by rapid turnover are difficult to quantify.
OSM
ACT NOW!
The Olympus EndoWorks
™
platform will
be discontinued on March 31, 2018.
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dates and information on preferred vendors.
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EndoWorks
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