Let’s talk about rinsing, whether its dishes, your hair, salad fixings or medical devices. Doesn’t sound all that glamorous does it? Right up there with taking out the trash and many other chores that need to be done. That’s why they’re called chores after all. Truth is rinsing is really, really important, and yet is often overlooked or simply not done well enough because it takes time...

Last week, we discussed the value of utilizing high purity RO water for cleaning and rinsing. This week, we are faced with a continuing problem of residue remaining on surgical devices. I’ve been in this industry for over thirty years and only recently heard about the frequency of white powder residue on containers and even on single use wrap after sterilization...

Every day seems to bring a new natural disaster or calamity, wildfires burning up New Mexico, western reservoirs drained to their lowest levels ever, extreme weather, flooding and landslides around the globe, can it get any worse? In a word, YES, yes it can if we don’t also stop poisoning ourselves with chemicals and products toxic to both humans and the environment.

It is late October, a time when apples are pressed into cider, leaves turn to vibrant autumn colors and Halloween horror movies scare and thrill audiences. While the names of monsters, ghosts and ghouls in these movies change, there are some recurring themes that are common to all of them including dangers lurking in hidden places, unexpected twists, secret weapons and of course, sequels. In a horror movie starring SPD professionals ...

Gels can preserve tissue and bioburden under a tough to remove clear coating. Jurassic Park, the book and movie was based on the notion that mosquitos were so well persevered in amber that dinosaur DNA could be recovered after millions of years. Well, pre-cleaning gels work much the same way, after a short time a sticky skin forms on the gel, trapping the debris beneath and becoming virtually impervious to cleaning. Enter the pre-cleaning gel, easy to use, and convenient, made to prevent soil from drying onto used instruments; is it wet or just an illusion?

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...