Sterile Processing

The Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) announces that the Industrial Ethylene Oxide Sterilization for Medical Devices Workshop, a three-day, highly interactive advanced workshop, will be held October 4-6, 2010 at the Westin Peachtree Plaza in Atlanta.

Censis® Technologies, Inc., developer of Censitrac surgical instrument tracking systems, has introduced ScopeTrac, an endoscope tracking and reprocessing data management solution designed to help prevent inappropriate endoscope reprocessing.

With municipal water in the United States and across the globe requiring disinfection to eradicate microbes such as cryptosporidium and giardia, new analysis from research firm Frost & Sullivan indicates that the ultraviolet water and wastewater disinfection systems market earned revenues of $388.3 million in 2008, and estimates this to reach $629.8 million in 2015.

Dror Rosengarten, MD, of the Institute of Pulmonology at Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center in Jerusalem, and colleagues, reported on a cluster of pseudo-infections in patients in a bronchoscopy unit who had Burkholderia cepacia isolated from bronchoalveolar lavage fluid samples

Advanced Sterilization Products (ASP) announces newly published data showing that the ASP EVOTECH® Endoscope Cleaner and Reprocessor (ECR) provides an automated approach superior to the manual cleaning required when using traditional AERs.

In the wake of the discovery that as many as 1,800 veterans may have been exposed to HIV and the hepatitis B virus while receiving dental care at the John A. Cochran Medical Center in St. Louis, an independent panel is now investigating why there were breaches of infection prevention and control practices relating to the disinfection and sterilization of instruments.

A new VHA whitepaper released today by Medline Industries, Inc. details how the company used observational studies and context-based design to build human factors and social behaviors into its redesigned Foley catheter management tray.

The course, "The Infection Control Professional as an Environmentalist" will be offered Oct. 25-29, 2010 by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's William and Ida Friday Center for Continuing Education.

Ascent, a leader in delivering healthcare resource sustainability, has been awarded a three-year, single-source agreement with Upper Midwest Consolidated Service Center (UMCSC), a supply network of VHA member hospitals in the Midwest.

The Joint Commission says it will examine ways to refine its tracer methodology by integrating patient-care tracers and patient system tracers to thoroughly evaluate selected high risk or problem-prone processes, including cleaning, disinfection and sterilization of medical equipment, devices and supplies.

The Associated Press is reporting that officials at the Veterans Administration will be launching an investigation into lapses of infection control practices relating to the sterilization of dental instruments at the St. Louis VA Medical Center.