Cleaning surgical instruments means removing foreign materials from the surgical appliances from objects and is typically done using water with enzymatic products and detergents. Cleaning is required for disinfection and sterilization because many organic and inorganic materials remain on the surfaces of instruments that, interfere with the effectiveness of the process. The surgical tools are usually presoaked or rinsed before cleaning to remove the dried blood stains.
Cleaning surgical instruments is an integral part of modern medical care since it is crucial to maintain the patient’s health. To keep your doctors, patients, and medical staff safe, you need to use surgical tools in a safe way. It means keeping all the instruments clean and free from germs. Surgical instruments are cleaned to prevent contaminated fatal diseases like AIDS and hepatitis. It is done to ensure the safety of the patients and keep them away from a number of diseases.
Why Is Cleaning Of Medical Instruments Necessary?
Using contaminated surgical tools can cause severe complications in patients. That is why health practitioners need to be concerned about clean and safe equipment for the patients to ensure maximum safety of patients before starting any surgical procedure. Every day hospital staff use medical instruments on different patients with different diseases. So many bacteria, viruses, and contaminated particles come in contact with these instruments. To get rid of these contaminated particles, mere cleaning is not enough. Proper cleaning and sterilization are necessary. Sterilization is essential because it is the best way to ensure that doctors and nurses don’t give their patients an infection or disease while treating them.
- Proper surgical instruments cleaning
- Prevent the spread of fatal diseases like hepatitis, AIDS, etc
- Ensure the smooth functioning of these instruments during a surgical procedure
Make the medical instruments more durable. - Minimizes the chance of surgeon’s hand infections
- Make the instrument resistant to corrosion and rust
- Prevent the accumulation of debris on the tools that may be difficult or remove later
How To Clean Surgical Instruments?
Surgical instruments and other reusable devices must be effectively reprocessed to be safe and functional for patient use. Before a tool can undergo sterilization or high-level disinfection, it must be cleaned. To ensure quality outcomes for the patient, the cleaning process requires standardization and consistency. Every hospital should have certain SOPs for cleaning medical instruments to prevent the spread of fatal diseases and ensure patient safety.
Steps Of Cleaning Surgical Tools:
There are a number of steps to clean surgical tools in order to make them free from foreign particles and germs.
Manual Cleaning:
We Should perform Manual Cleaning of all instruments, but it may be recommended as the preferred cleaning method for delicate or complex devices, such as endoscopes, fragile needles, or microsurgical instruments. Cleaning is done according to the instructions of manufacturing companies.
Disinfection:
The second step is to disinfect. Disinfection is done to kill bacteria that don’t make spores, and you can use liquid chemicals to disinfect surgical instruments.
Sterilization:
Most medical and surgical devices in healthcare facilities are made of heat-stable materials and therefore undergo heat, primarily steam sterilization. Sterilization is a process that destroys all forms of microorganisms on the surface of a tool or in a fluid to prevent disease spread associated with that tool. Using inadequately sterilized critical medical instruments can cause a high risk of transmitting pathogens. Several methods of sterilization are used to prevent microbial growth on the devices.
Steam Sterilization:
Of all the different methods used for sterilization, moist heat in the form of moist steam under pressure is the most acceptable and dependable method. Steam sterilization is inexpensive, nontoxic, microbicidal, and sporicidal, killing all forms of bacteria on surgical tools. Autoclaves are steam sterilizers that are used in most sterile processing departments.
Steam is usually the safest and cheapest way to clean most medical equipment. Some technicians will only use a different method if the medical device can’t be sterilized with steam or is made of a material that can’t handle the heat. The autoclave’s high pressure and heat kill all microorganisms on an object. The basic principle of steam sterilization is done in an autoclave, and each item is exposed to direct steam contact at the specified temperature and pressure for a specified time.
Surgical Tools That Can Be Sterlise By Steam:
Steam sterilization should be used for all the instruments that are heat and moisture-resistant to prevent microbial transmission. Steam sterilizers also are used in healthcare centers to clean microbiological waste and sharps containers.
Flash Sterilization:
It is a process designed for steam sterilization of unwrapped patient-care items for immediate use (or placed in a specially covered, designed, and rigid container to allow for rapid steam penetration). It is a process designed to steam sterilize the tools for immediate use when an emergency arises. Flash sterilization is actually the modification of conventional steam sterilization.
Uses:
Flash sterilization is acceptable for processing cleaned patient-care items that cannot be packaged, sterilized, and stored before use. It also is used when there needs more time to sterilize an item by the preferred method described.
Sterilization With Dry Heat:
Dry heat is another useful method of sterilization that needs time and high temperatures to work. Because of this, it’s not suitable for many materials, but it’s often still more reliable than other options. In dry heat sterilization, the air around 340 degrees Fahrenheit is used to kill microorganisms.
Dry heat kills the micro-organisms using the destructive oxidation method. This method helps to destroy large contaminating bio-molecules such as proteins. The important cellular components of an organism are destroyed, and the organism dies. The temperature is maintained for almost an hour to kill the most difficult resistant spores.
Surgical Tools That Can Be Sterlise By Dry Heat:
Glassware, paper-wrapped things, metal instruments, and syringes are sterilized through dry heat. The materials used in this process are heat resistant or can be said to be heat stable. Powders impervious to moisture and anhydrous oils and fats can also be sterilized using this method.
Ethylene Oxide Sterilization:
Ethylene oxide is a colorless gas that is explosive and flammable. Ethylene oxide sterilization, or ETO sterilization, is primarily used to sterilize medical & pharmaceutical products. It kills the microorganisms that are accumulated during the production or packaging process. ETO also kills spores. It is used to sterilize heat or moisture-sensitive items and is suitable for semi-industrial applications. This sterilization is carried out at low temperatures. Many other sterilization methods involve extreme heat, which might damage the products.
Surgical Tools That Can Be Sterilize By Ethylene Oxide Sterilization:
Assembled complex devices, Catheters, Syringes, Saline bags, Stents, Multi-lumen tubing products, Products with integrated electronics, and Custom procedure packs are sterilized using Ethylene oxide gas.
Peracetic Acid Sterilization:
Peracetic acid is sporicidal at low temperatures, and it remains effective in the presence of some organic material. It is an oxidizing agent that functions like hydrogen peroxide through the denaturation of protein, disruption of cell wall permeability, and oxidation of sulfhydryl and sulfur bonds in proteins, enzymes, and other metabolites and thus kills microorganisms.
Uses:
Peracetic acid sterilization kills the microbes on medical and surgical instruments like endoscopes. A contact time of 10 or 15 minutes with surgical instruments and a concentration greater than 0.09% peracetic acid is recommended to destroy all types of bacteria, fungi, viruses, and spores.
Plasma Gas Sterilization:
This type of sterilization uses low-temperature hydrogen peroxide-based gas plasma inside a chamber to kill any kind of microbes or spores present on dental or medical equipment. When vaporized hydrogen peroxide is added to the chamber, it cleans the equipment. Once the vapor is taken out of the chamber, a lower-temperature plasma is made. This ensures that all the equipment is thoroughly sterilized.
Uses:
Materials and devices that cannot withstand high temperatures and humidity, such as some plastics, corrosion-susceptible metal alloys, and electrical appliances, can be sterilized using hydrogen peroxide gas plasma.
To Conclude:
Cleaning is an essential step in reprocessing a reusable device or surgical instrument. You can use manual and automated cleaning; the methods will vary based on the medical appliance. Cleaning reusable devices is vital to prevent device damage and pathogenic microorganisms or transmissible proteins. To ensure the safety of any surgical procedure, thorough cleaning of surgical tools is required. It will prevent the spread of many fatal diseases and ensure the safety of your patients.
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