On this Earth Day 2024, we would like to share how special our world is. How every breath of air, every drop of water, and every bite of food comes from the living planet we share.
When I was a teenager, I didn’t know how to protect my skin from the sun. I used a visor to capture the sun’s rays and baby oil to bronze and darken my skin to get a deep tan. It was what all my friends did.
“If you don't rinse your dishes after washing them, you'll still have food residue and bacteria on them. Plus, you've mixed the residue of ALL your dishes together. So if one of them had something bad on it, now they all do.”
According to CBS news, “Major cities are running out of water. A new World Water Day report says it could worsen global conflict.” World Water Day helps raise awareness about water-related issues and encourages people to act and address global water challenges...
Over the past month or two, we’ve learned that several facilities and health care systems have standardized on using germicides, environmental wipes, that EPA consider pesticides for cleaning our containers and other medical devices. Most of these disinfectant wipes are carriers for highly caustic solutions with pH >11 or composed of quaternary compounds considered hazardous to human health. And they are not rinsed off!...
I spent this past weekend watching a Netflix serial about the Innocence Project. A dedicated team of investigators and lawyers work to exonerate individuals who have been wrongly convicted, through the use of DNA testing. Did you know that people have blind spots? Of course we do. What is meaningful to one person can be disturbing to another...
The news cycle has been dominated by headlines that are talking about AI and it’s potential to reshape the way we live and work. What many people don’t realize is that we have been developing and using machine learning tools at Case Medical long before it was popularized in the news cycle...
What’s going on? Off label use of germicides without rinsing, damaged and pitted medical devices, and stripped sterilization containers with white powder residue... I’ve had an opportunity to visit several health care facilities and hopefully provide some ideas for improvement of process and product. ...
This is too frequently a tactic used in politics, business, commerce, and in the health care industry to create doubt about a product or service, even a person’s best intentions. Last week, we discussed how science experiments utilize both positive and negative controls. We pointed out how process indicators used to monitor both cleaning and sterilization efficacy also serve to alert us to failures that then need to be investigated...
During the past two decades, sterilization containers have replaced wrapped trays and even peel pouches. Containers come in a full range of sizes and configurations that meet the specifications of the devices to be sterilized. When compared to disposable wrap and peel pouches, containers save money, contribute to the bottom line, and provide the ultimate in instrument protection and sterility maintenance, but how long do they last...