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40 years of ensuring patient safety
2024 is a key moment in history for Wassenburg Medical. The company will be celebrating its 40-year anniversary in business. Having designed the world’s first automated endoscope reprocessor, the company continues to drive innovation.
Forty years ago, Wassenburg’s founder, Gerrit Wassenburg, designed the world’s first AER, following several incidents and debates revolving around the challenges of washing and disinfecting endoscopes. Gerrit Wassenburg recognised the need for a new endoscope washer-disinfector and developed a revolutionary and patented concept – in which endoscope channels are individually connected, washed, disinfected, controlled, and monitored during reprocessing. This is still the foundation for state-of-the-art endoscope washer- disinfectors today. Since then, the technology and processes
have advanced beyond expectations. This pace and continuous drive are ever present throughout Wassenburg Medical, and the company endeavours to go to new levels to achieve a safe endoscope for every patient. From its early conception, the Wassenburg
AERs provided a new approach in endoscope reprocessing. The patented concept allowed endoscopes to be reprocessed independently in two asynchronous chambers, with the patient insertion tube being fed into a helical coil and a vortex being created during the washing cycle. This process ensures that the endoscope is completely reprocessed through the washing and disinfection. The company innovated the way in which endoscopes are reprocessed and its endoscope washer disinfectors contain a
www.clinicalservicesjournal.com Volume 23 I Issue 3 I March 2024
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unique basin and helical tube system. The helical tube system is designed to allow the distal end to be completely reprocessed, allowing fluid to contact it everywhere. Each endoscope channel is reprocessed and controlled individually on connection, flow, pressure, and blockage. It wasn’t until the early 2000s that the
Wassenburg products entered the UK. Until this point, the UK was heavily reliant on the manual reprocessing of endoscopes. Following several key incidents across the UK, due to users not knowing how to reprocess endoscopes correctly, the Wassenburg WD440 top loader was rolled
out across UK facilities, offering healthcare establishments the opportunity to reprocess endoscopes in an automated system. Wassenburg has continued to lead in
innovation and, in the mid 2000s, developed the Wassenburg WD440 Pass Through endoscope washer disinfector (WD440 PT). This concept allows the dirty flexible endoscopes to be loaded on one side and processed, while the clean disinfected flexible endoscopes are unloaded on the other side of the unit. Since being established in the UK, the company’s range of endoscope washer
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www.clinicalservicesjournal.com I March 2024
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