Becker's ASC Review

52 Executive Briefing: SPONSORED BY T he benefits of sealed sterilization containers for surgical instruments have been documented extensively in the medical literature. However, not all containerized solutions use the same technology. ONE TRAY®'s FDA-cleared, rigid sterilization containers are intended to be used to hold temperature tolerant medical devices, surgical supplies, single instruments, multiple instruments or an instrument to be used immediately following sterilization. ONE TRAY® containers have been validated to maintain the sterility of the contents for up to 48 hours. This includes sterilization of lumens 3 mm in diameter or larger with lengths of up to 400 mm. Becker's ASC Review recently spoke with two experts responsible for implementing ONE TRAY®'s innovative sterilization technology at their institutions: • Warren Perry, BSN, RN, RNFA, CNOR, Director of Surgical Services at Community Memorial Hospital in Hamilton, N.Y. • Eric Netroe, Administrative Program Coordinator for sterile processing at a hospital in the Midwest Changing the game means changing mindsets ONE TRAY®'s patented design takes advantage of the thermodynamic behavior of steam to efficiently attain sterility within the sealed container. The number, relative size and positioning of the filtered vent configuration creates a flow pattern that assures the expeditious and complete dispersal of saturated steam throughout the container. Retained moisture accumulates in a designed collection area, while a raised deck plate eliminates contact between instrumentation and the collection area. "When I first learned about ONE TRAY®, my biggest concern was the allowed retained moisture," Mr. Netroe said. "That broke a foundational belief I had regarding retained moisture within sterile trays. After the ONE TRAY® rep and I had multiple conversations about the proven science, my opinion shifted. ONE TRAY®'s residual moisture is sterile. I went from wondering how this could be safe for patients to wondering how I hadn't heard about or implemented this technology before." Once Mr. Netroe's hospital implemented ONE TRAY®, the sterile processing department team was able to pay more attention to decontamination and inspection processes. Time was saved, as well, since surgical teams didn't have to wait for trays to dry and cool. According to Mr. Netroe, " ONE TRAY® has been a game changer for our day-to-day operations. In the five years that I've been an SPD manager, we've never had an infection or adverse event linked to ONE TRAY®." Sealed sterilization containers minimize OR delays, while maximizing patient safety Mr. Perry was first introduced to ONE TRAY® when he worked at a hospital in Florida as a staff nurse. When Community Memorial Hospital started to experience significant delays in the operating room due to holes in wrapped instrument trays, he immediately thought of ONE TRAY® as a potential solution. "Although we are a small critical access hospital, we have a significant joint replacement program. Each year, we perform around 700 joint replacement procedures. We have a small inventory of instruments and we don't have significant budget to purchase additional tools," Mr. Perry said. "The OR delays were leading to turnover issues which led us to using immediate use steam sterilization for certain trays. On our journey of discovery to eliminate Immediate use steam sterilization, we reached out to ONE TRAY." The sterile processing team was on board with implementing ONE TRAY®, but hospital administrators had questions about the return on investment. A sterilization wrap shortage was the catalyst that convinced Community Memorial Hospital to move forward with ONE TRAY®. "We knew that we'd have significant delays and would most likely have to cancel surgical cases," Mr. Perry said. "That motivated us to bring ONE TRAY® to the attention of administration again, so we could highlight the benefits from a patient safety perspective, as well as an efficiency perspective." Community Memorial Hospital planned to use ONE TRAY® proactively for as many instruments as possible, but the organization also expected to leverage the solution reactively for cases where wrapped vendor trays still had to be used. If a wrapped vendor tray had a hole in it, the instruments could be reprocessed using ONE TRAY® in about one hour, compared to the two hours required with dry time in our previously used autoclave cycle. "To wash, wrap and autoclave instruments and then leave them to cool to room temperature before transport can take upwards of two hours, maybe longer," Mr. Perry said. "I worked closely with the finance team, and we calculated Hospital leaders see the value of ONE TRAY®'s innovative sterilization technology

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