In healthcare, constantly improving the sterilization process can mean the difference between patients’ full recovery or obtaining infections. Several systems, products, services, and technology enable Central Service/Sterile Processing & Distribution (CS/SPD) to clean, disinfect, sterilize, and prepare surgical instruments and devices used for medical procedures.
What Is Sterile Processing?
Preparing for the Certification Board for Sterile Processing and Distribution Certification or CBSPD requires learning about relevant processes and concepts in becoming a sterile processing technician. One of the things to know about this is sterile processing, which refers to cleaning and sterilizing medical and surgical equipment before reuse.
Sterile processing is one of the critical factors that help prevent the spread of healthcare-associated infections or HAIs in the medical setting. With proper sterile processing, anyone who comes in touch with recently used medical tools and equipment can avoid catching a disease.
Sterile processing technicians learn in SPT certification how to keep medical supplies clean by sterilizing, cleaning, processing, storing, and distributing them in the medical setting. Sterile processing is done when non-disposable instruments for medical operations are transferred to a designated decontamination room and cleaned to prepare the tools for reuse.
As sterile processing departments exist in hospitals, the sterilization of medical devices is monitored from beginning to end to ensure compliance with the regulatory and institutional requirements of the medical facility. When instrument trays are returned to the sterile processing department of a medical facility after a surgical operation, medical instruments are processed for sterilzation by numerous requirements before being stored for future use or reuse.
Surgeons and sterile processing technicians must collaborate, starting with adequate sterile processing. Departments that handle sterilization processes are considered the backbone of medical facilities. A medical facility’s infection rates will significantly decrease with well-trained and detail-oriented sterile processing technicians.
The sterilization procedure may vary across medical instruments, depending on the materials they are made of or the manufacturer’s maintenance instructions. The sterile processing cycle consists of four critical processes with quality assurance checks: decontamination, assembly and packaging, sterilization, and storage and distribution for future surgical operations.
For more details about why sterile processing is essential, here is an infographic provided by Martinson College.
