Editor's Note The Joint Commission, on May 12, listed the top 5 standards most frequently identified as “not compliant” during surveys and reviews from January 1 to December 31, 2020. The top five for accredited hospitals are: NPSG.15.01.01: Reduce the risk for suicide. EP1. IC.02.02.01: The hospital reduces the risk…

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Editor's Note ECRI and the Association for Healthcare Value Analysis Professionals (AHVAP) have partnered on a new white paper outlining key supply chain lessons and risk mitigation strategies learned from the COVID-19 pandemic. Among the lessons learned is the critical role physicians play in the value analysis process and that…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission, on March 24, released its sentinel event statistics for 2020, which totaled 794. The top five most frequently reported events were: Falls: 170 Unintended retention of a foreign object: 106 Suicide: 81 Delay in treatment: 76 Wrong-site surgery: 68. The Joint Commission’s Office of Quality…

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Implants are foreign bodies, and they increase the risk of a surgical site infection. Processing implants requires strict adherence to the required steps because implants have sustained contact with sterile tissue. An implant is defined as a device that is placed into a surgically or naturally formed cavity of the…

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Editor's Note The Association for Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI), on January 20, released four amendments to the “ANSI/AAMI ST79 Comprehensive guide to steam sterilization and sterility assurance in healthcare facilities.” Among the additions: recommendations and clarifications for maintaining the integrity of the sterile processing area, including common sense additions,…

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Resiliency, a term that has cropped up repeatedly during the COVID-19 pandemic, is often considered a key defense against burnout. But it is also important in the context of the healthcare supply chain, says Ed Hisscock, senior vice president of supply chain management at Trinity Health, a 22-state healthcare system…

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The financial impact of COVID-19 on healthcare providers has been considerable. With experts predicting that half of all US hospitals would be operating in the red by the end of 2020, healthcare leaders have had to seek multiple ways to cut costs. The expansion of single-use medical device (SUD) reprocessing…

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Editor’s Note. Developing and sustaining competent sterile processing staff is critical for patient safety, yet there is a dearth of formal educational programs for this function. Whitman Partners, a Portland, Oregon-based specialty search firm dedicated to placing directors of surgical services at hospitals and surgery centers nationwide, asked former surgical…

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New recommendations developed from evidence-based research have been added to AORN’s Guideline for Care and Cleaning of Surgical Instruments. Several of these changes will have an impact on the quality of processing in sterile processing (SP) areas. This latest version, released on October 12, 2020, includes industry changes that have…

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Imagine that during a total joint surgical procedure, debris comes out of a surgical instrument and lands directly inside a patient’s open wound. Although such a scenario is rare, when it does occur, it creates a major patient infection risk. Many standards and guidelines recommend best practices that can help…

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