Michael

When It’s My Surgery: Fear, Trust, and Our Sterile Processing Moment

It hit me. The unexplainable roulette wheel of acute appendicitis respects no one. And this time, it was my number that came up. Around 3pm a week ago I started feeling a little pressure in my tummy. Just general discomfort, nothing big. After dinner we took our two year old for a walk around the…

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The Dangerously Dirty Secret of Sterile Processing Contract/Traveling

This is not a hit piece. But I am going to say some hard things. I have many close friends involved in the Sterile Processing temporary staffing industry, as both recruiters and “travelers” — and I’d be the first to defend them as the epitome of professionalism, honesty, and high quality work ethic. This article…

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The Tip of the Spear: A Review of “The Bleeding Edge” and What’s Waiting Behind Door #2

I should not have been as surprised as I was. But then the anger set in, then fear, then a few tears as the reality of the current state of our medical device industry hit me like a ton of bricks. I’m not a surgeon or scientist. I’ve never been to an FDA meeting or…

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Where Everybody Knows Your Name: Why Sterile Processors Love Facebook

38,000+ members strong and growing. That’s the combined membership of many of the largest Sterile Processing groups on Facebook today (examples here and here). By all accounts most of the pages are daily bustling with questions, photos, encouragements, and yes — a little commiserating now and then. Unlike the business-oriented pages of Linkedin, after just…

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3,778 Reasons the New Jersey Sterilization Outbreak Matters to You

The impact of the recent dirty surgery headline out of New Jersey is understandably shocking. But it reveals much more about our industry than we may like to admit… Reoccurring Themes of Failure In the “Curtailment of Services” letter sent from the New Jersey Department of Health to HealthPlus Surgery Center, all services were ordered…

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William Wallace and the Excellent CS/SPD Shift Huddle: They’ll Never Take Our Freemans!

If you haven’t seen Mel Gibson’s Braveheart, the epic biography of Sir William Wallace’s rebellion against the English control of Scotland, stop reading now and take three hours to get your fix of drama, war, and yes, inspiration. Okay, now that you’re back, we can get started digging into what Wallace can teach us about…

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Confident Compliance: Infection Prevention in Ultrasound Probe Reprocessing

In healthcare, one of the best ways to be compliant is to be confidently compliant. Compliance with The Joint Commission’s standards on infection control can be difficult to navigate and in this release of the Beyond…

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Vendor Spotlight: InstruSafe by Summit Medical

What impact do broken surgical instruments have on patient safety, surgeon trust, and the bottom line of your department budgets? How about missing or misplaced instruments that cause delays in instrument reprocessing and turnovers? On this release of…

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Myth Busting 2019: Sterility Assurance Debate

Why isn’t every-load biological indicator monitoring a global practice in Sterile Processing? Do chemical indicators actually pose a greater challenge in certain contexts? Is parametric release the future of sterility assurance or ready for…

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Vendor Spotlight: ATH Medical & The AnciTrak System

What if there were a tool that allowed your Sterile Processing team to quickly and accurately identify loaner instruments for reassembly? No need to call a vendor, no frustrating case delays because of incomplete trays, and no more replacement costs…

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