Environmental Services

Reusable medical devices come in all shapes and sizes, from specula to colonoscopes. Generally, these devices have expensive compo-nents that require them to be cleaned and disinfected or sterilized. This article describes the salient points for validating that a medical device can be safely reused. It covers disinfection processes, not sterilization. The cleaning validation information contained within is germane to all reusable medical devices.

One good housekeeper can prevent more diseases than a dozen doctors can cure. Some patients are so ill that a healthcare-associated infection (HAI) can take a patients life, even if there were a room full of doctors to provide treatment. Just as medical personnel care for patients, environmental services (ES) professionals work to keep hospitals healthy. This article is a nuts-and-bolts piece meant to improve the health of healthcare facilities. There are a few basic things we need to do to make ES departments effective -- proper hiring and training of staff, adequate design of ES work areas, accurate appraisal of task loads, and concise time management of the frontline staff.