ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE
Close your eyes and think of a hospital. What do you see? Fuelled by TV and film depictions, perhaps you see the busy environment of the Emergency Department? Or brightly lit operating theatres where surgeons and their teams carry out life-saving and pioneering work? These are the well- known and almost ‘public’ face of hospitals.
A
way from these more ‘high-profile’ and well-known aspects of medical life, lies the beating heart of
hospitals. We’re talking about the departments, without which the work in the other areas could not continue. Think about where the many thousands
of instruments used by surgical and endoscopy teams each and every day are cleaned and sterilised - everything from an instrument used in surgery to an endoscope used to detect abnormalities. Where do those instruments go after
they have been used? How are they cleaned? And what would happen if those services weren’t available for any reason and those tools couldn’t be cleaned? Decontamination and sterilisation of any
instrument used in a hospital environment must be of the highest standard. For surgical instruments, there’s a strict process. First, a manual clean, followed by a stint in the washer disinfector. Then they’re packaged and wrapped, steam sterilised and placed on a cooling rack. The water used in these processes needs to be purified and disinfected and even the air in the department needs to be filtered to ensure optimal cleanliness. Endoscopes need even more specialist cleaning in dedicated endoscope decontamination units which are specially equipped and use a high disinfectant washing process and purified water. But what happens when sterilisation
and decontamination departments become unavailable? Sterilisation and decontamination departments often sit in the basements of hospitals, where instruments are cleaned to the most exacting standards and are ready for use – allowing the flow of patients and procedures to carry on unhindered. However, they are potentially vulnerable departments. Their physical location in the
healthcaredm.co.uk 11
The lesser-known hospital heroes
basements of hospitals can mean they are more likely to be affected by naturally occurring issues such as flooding, which can damage the equipment and leave the environment unsanitary due to contaminated flood water. These are not ideal conditions for ensuring sterility. Replacing the equipment or refurbishing
the sterilisation or decontamination departments of a hospital - whether it is a planned process, or as the result of an emergency - leaves the hospital with the potentially significant issue; where to send the equipment to be cleaned? There are usually two options for a hospital faced with having no decontamination or sterilisation facilities. One option is to use a neighbouring hospital’s sterilisation or decontamination facilities temporarily; but this can cause potential delays in getting vital instruments back to the right department, it may
increase the risk of contamination and put additional pressure on neighbouring services. It may also require the hospital to buy more instruments to cover the increased ‘downtime’; in the case of endoscopes this is seriously expensive. The other option is to deploy a
temporary solution which still allows cleaning to take place on-site. Vanguard Healthcare Solutions have an extensive fleet of mobile facilities including endoscope decontamination units and Central Sterile Services Department (CSSD) units which are rapidly deployable. The new Central Sterile Services Department (CSSD) unit will be showcasing at Healthcare Estates, Manchester Central on 8-9th October where you will be able to receive a free tour from Vanguard’s team of experts.
www.vanguardhealthcare.co.uk
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57
