by
Lisa Chamoff, Contributing Reporter | October 20, 2014
From the August 2014 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
The equipment market makes up close to 6 percent of the compound annual growth rate, while contract sterilization makes up about 8 percent of the compound annual growth rate, with more and more hospitals outsourcing their sterilization services to other companies.
More growth is expected in the Asia- Pacific region, where governments will likely introduce more stringent infection control regulations over the next several years, according to TechNavio’s analysts.
Endoscope reprocessing
Contaminated endoscopes are frequently connected to health care associated infections. The flexible scopes are particularly difficult to clean since most cannot be heat sterilized, and they also have multiple channels and plugs.
Steam sterilization is more economical, costing $1 per cycle versus $8 to $12 per cycle using hydrogen peroxide gas or ethylene oxide, says Casie Leiby, an analyst with MD Buyline, whose report on endoscope reprocessing was published earlier this year.
“A lot of the manufacturers are working on developing autoclavable scopes,” Leiby says.
With low-temperature endoscope reprocessing, it’s particularly important to use chemical test strips to test the minimum effective concentration of the disinfectant, and also biological indicator test strips, which validates the sterilization.
Several third-party vendors provide software to automate reprocessing documentation, notes Leiby. CS-iQ from STERIS can be used for endoscopes, while Medivators, a company that specializes in endoscope reprocessing, launched their own software for this. The Medivators software, called Endora, tracks endoscopes through each step of the reprocessing cycle, and can even send an email if any step in the reprocessing process is left out.
The steel standard
Some sterilizer manufacturers use carbon steel for the jacket instead of stainless steel. Since steam moves through the jacket to the sterilization chamber, that can lead to some rust particles being carried over to the chamber, says David Morganstern, director of sales and marketing at Tuttnauer, which provides compact, mid-range, large capacity steam sterilizers to hospitals.
“When that instrument dries, you have what looks like a rust spot,” Morganstern says. “Once that happens, it’s very likely that that instrument will continue to stain in that same spot.”
Tracy Tuttle, an equipment service technician in the biomed services department at the Parkview Health System in Fort Wayne, Indiana, agrees that stainless steel is the way to go for sterilizers. The system has had units with copper piping, and it’s difficult for a health system that deals with all different types of water — one hospital in the system is served by 14 different wells.
