March 22, 2022 admin
Disinfection of Heat Sensitive Semi Critical Devices
Need to Disinfect Heat Sensitive Semi-Critical Medical Device:
Sterilisation and disinfection are two of the most important parts of hospital infection control. Every day, a number of surgical procedures are done in hospitals. In a lot of different health care facilities, more and more invasive procedures are being done. As the patient goes through different procedures, the medical device or surgical tool that comes into contact with their sterile tissue or mucus membrane is more likely to bring in an infection. Furthermore, there is a risk that infections could spread from one person to another or from the environment to the patient through improperly sterilised or disinfected devices. In the hospital, there have been a lot of outbreaks and infections because of dirty equipment. Many people have been infected because they used endoscopes that were dirty.
What are semi-critical devices and why are they important?
Proper decontamination methods must be used for medical and surgical equipment in all health care facilities. Spaulding proposed that understanding how disinfection works would be easier if instruments and items for patient care were put into three groups: critical, semicritical, and noncritical, based on how much risk of infection they pose when used (1) . Spaulding came up with a logical way to clean and sterilise patient-care equipment more than 35 years ago. Critical instruments can get into soft tissue or bone such as scalpels, scalers, and burs. Semi-critical instruments touch tissue but don’t penetrate it such as endoscopes and dental mouth mirrors. Non-critical tools only come in contact with the skin that is fully intact. This classification scheme is so simple and logical that infection-control professionals and other people have kept, improved, and used it to plan disinfection or sterilisation methods. Prior to using critical items, they must be sterilised (2) . Two crucial documents released by centers for disease control provide crucial instruction for such sterilization, “Guidelines for Environmental Infection Control in Health-Care Facilities” and “Guidelines for Disinfection and Sterilization in Healthcare Facilities.” For semicritical items, they must be disinfected at a high level, and for noncritical items, they should be disinfected at a low level.
Importance and challenges in disinfection of semi-critical medical device:
Semicritical items are those that come into contact with mucous membranes or skin that isn’t in good shape. Equipment for respiratory therapy and anaesthesia is in this category. Endoscope blades, laryngoscope blades, esophageal manometry probes, anorectal manometry catheters, and diaphragm-fitting rings are also in this group. Those medical devices should be free of all microorganisms at all times (i.e., mycobacteria, fungi, viruses, and bacteria). As a general rule, people who have healthy mucous membranes, like those in the lungs or the digestive tract, are less likely to get common bacterial spores in them than people who don’t have healthy mucous membranes. Chemical disinfectants must be used to clean semicritical items to the point where they can’t be used without them.
There is a problem with endoscopes not being cleaned and reprocessed according to the rules. It’s important to look at germicidal data, as well as epidemiological studies about how prion transmission happens, how infective human tissue is, and how well cleaning can get rid of proteins from your body. Scientific evidence suggests that people who have known or suspected CJD (Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease) or another prion disease need special prion reprocessing for critical and semicritical devices that are contaminated with high-risk tissue such as spinal cord, eye tissue or brain. When working with high-risk tissues, patients, and critical or semicritical medical devices, you should be careful.
There are a number of semi-critical medical devices that are heat-sensitive in nature. In this case, the most common sterilisation method, heat and steam, cannot be used. This presents a significant challenge. sterilization by ethylene oxide (EtO) can be an option, but it’s often too time-consuming for routine use between patients (2) . It’s important to rinse semicritical items with sterile water, filtered water, or tap water, then with alcohol to make sure they don’t come into contact with mucous membranes in the respiratory or digestive tract. Rinsing alone is not enough, this is exactly why IMAEC MEDNTEK has made products to address this requirement. Medntek OPA is ideal for disinfection of heat-sensitive semi-critical medical devices (3). Designed for Fast disinfection it can be used manually or in Automated Endoscope Re-processor (AER). It’s Material Compatible nature makes it a perfect solution to disinfects a wide range of endoscopes and other heat-sensitive semi-critical medical devices. Medntek ID 50 is another excellent product which provides cleaning and disinfection of all kind of surgical and clinical instruments (4) . It is aldehyde free and sanitizes and disinfects tools rapidly. The ready to use solution is compatible with Endoscope, Laparoscope, Gastroscope and other heat sensitive equipment.
Devices that are used for medical purposes need to be cleaned and sterilised in a certain way. Cleaning should always be done before high-level disinfection and sterilisation. The current disinfection and sterilisation procedures must be adhered to in full. When disinfection and sterilisation are used correctly, they can help make sure that invasive and non-invasive medical devices are safe to use and avoid healthcare-related infections (3).
References:
1) Spaulding EH. Lawrence C, Block SS. Chemical disinfection of medical and surgical materials , Disinfection, sterilization, and preservation , 1968PhiladelphiaLea and Febiger (pg. 517 – 31 )
2)https://www.cdc.gov/infectioncontrol/guidelines/disinfection/healthcare-equipment.html