Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/653703
30 INFECTION PREVENTION & PATIENT SAFETY ture and quarantine process as a succes- sive check to ensure to the best of our ability there are no pathogenic bacteria on that scope before it goes back into the patient. Q: How does Virginia Mason Medical Center's culture and quar- antine process for medical scopes work? AR: It begins at the end of a case. An endoscope comes out of a patient and gets reprocessed in the standard fash- ion according to the manufacturer's guidelines. We use Olympus scopes and specialized tools from Olympus to follow their reprocessing guidelines. Once those scopes finish the high-level disinfection process they go into drying, and once they're thoroughly dried they get cultured. We use a liquid culture media to brush all of the difficult-to-reach areas, like the elevator mechanism which seems to be the implicated area in these outbreaks. e liquid culture media helps to produce the high burden of bacteria we need for a culture. Aer culturing, the scope is put through the automated endoscope reprocessor for one more cycle and is then held for 48 hours, during which time we wait for culture results to come back. If the scopes grow any potential bacte- rial pathogens, they then we start the clock all over again, meaning they go through the entire high-level disinfec- tion process again and get re-cultured and re-quarantined for 48 hours. If at the end of 48 hours the scope grows no pathogens on it, it's then re-released for use in patient care. Q: Do you think all hospitals using scopes that have been linked to outbreaks should adopt a culture and quarantine program for reprocessing? AR: There are a couple of an- swers to that question. First, this is not necessarily a procedure that is reasonable for hospitals to adopt for a variety of reasons. The costs incurred are astronomical; to add the culture and quarantine process we had to purchase 20 additional scopes in order to accommodate our clinical volume. That's a huge burden, and the reality is, why should we have to buy three endo- scopes to make one work the way that it was sold to us that it was supposed to work and be reprocessed? I don't think it's incumbent on everyone to implement this type of program and I think, again, the biggest criticism has been that not everybody can do this. The cost will be prohib- itive in many places. This is what worked for us at a time where we had an outbreak, this is what we needed to do in order to keep our patients safe, and it's continued to be able to provide them with a medical care that they need. But I think if you look to the FDA, they've recommended adjunctive measures beyond standard reprocess- ing, culture and quarantine being one of them, but with the limitation that the cost-prohibitive nature of that is not insignificant. n 99.98% ELIMINATION IN 5 MINUTES AT 5 FEET PATIENT SAFETY INDEPENDENT TESTS CONFIRM IT REQUIRES IT PERFORMANCE ASSURED BY INDEPENDENT LABS INDUSTRY FIRST: 3 YEAR ALL-INCLUSIVE WARRANTY THE SOLUTION WITH THE LOWEST TOTAL COST OF OWNERSHIP (TOC) THE PRACTICAL APPROACH VISIT US ONLINE AT WWW.SPECTRA254.COM VISIT US AND SEE A DEMO AT AORN2016 • APRIL 3–5 • ANAHEIM, CA ADVANCING UVC TECHNOLOGY FOR BETTER HEALTH SPECTRA254 PRODUCTS DELIVER THE HIGHEST UVC DOSAGE OF ANY COMPARABLE UVC PRODUCT ON THE MARKET TODAY