Happy Earth Day! Your yearly reminder to respect the earth and show gratitude for our planet. The earth offers us so many beautiful places and important resources that need to be protected.

Spring Cleaning is a good thing at home and in the SPD. “Nothing feels quite as satisfying as coming home to a house that's so clean it practically sparkles.” And isn’t the same true for our workplaces and certainly for healthcare facilities? Springtime is here, throw open the windows, let in the sunshine and fresh air. Spring is a time for renewal after all. We here at Case Medical offer this checklist to help

This week we continue with Covid19 by looking at its effects around the world. Covid19 has become the great mystery of our times. Why for instance here in the Northeast, home of Case Medical, are we seeing a rise in cases? It’s uncertain if it’s the beginning of a larger surge. William Hanage, an epidemiologist at Harvard, said “There’s definitely something coming, but depending on all the moving parts it might be a ripple relative to previous waves.”

Uncertainty is the thing that will keep you up at night. Parents know it well as they wait up for the kid who’s out past their promised return time. Farmers uncertain about the weather lose sleep over will there be too much rain or not enough. Consider your own uncertainty as you try to plan for your facility against a backdrop of pandemic, unexpected events, and a war in Europe.

Does the idea of the conservation of energy make you think of the gas mileage your car gets, or putting on a sweater when you lower the heat in the house during winter, or maybe 60 watt LED light bulbs that make you think you’re going blind?

Does your idea of natural order mean be able to nap on a quiet Sunday afternoon, or binge watch a new comedy series that just dropped? Well, those activities certainly do fall into the natural order things for time off from work, but that’s not where this blog is going. Instead let’s talk about chaos, disorder, perfect example, the mess that greets you Monday morning in the SPD.

The world has probably changed more in the last few weeks than it has in the last two years during the pandemic. While we all want to be hopeful for peace in Europe, and a return to normalcy as the incidence of COVID 19 declines, world events just keep moving in the opposite direction. So, what to do? “Plan for the worst and hope for the best” is the strategy of the day. While for Case Medical, our perforated bottom rigid reusable containers remain the universal choice, it may be time to consider the advantage of solid bottom containers for pre-vacuum steam sterilization, for Stryker’s SteriZone low temp sterilizer, and certainly for transport of used items…

Just when it looks like we’ve passed the peak of the COVID19 Omicron variant and the pandemic is giving everyone a break, conflict breaks out in Europe making global oil supply uncertain. Will the Chinese use this moment to make advances on its claims to Taiwan? Who knows, but it’s pretty much certain that when chaos reigns global supply chains and production will stay in disarray.

Rigid sterilization containers were first introduced in the USA in the early 1980s, but developed much earlier in different forms than we see today.  Since then, new technologies entered the marketplace in the form of new devices and new sterilization modalities. Some of these advances present new sterilization challenges that were not considered earlier. With that being said, knowledge and caution need to be applied to integrate new devices and materials with any rigid reusable container.  Not all containers are created equal…

As a subscriber to Case Medical’s weekly blog, you know the we’ve been preparing to host a live online event, “Sustainable Cleaning Chemistries for a Healthier World”. Now we’d like to introduce to you the panelists who have so generously volunteered to share their time and knowledge with us all. Each panelist brings experience and perspective from a variety of vantage points.