In the Healthcare Environment, ensuring that the equipment and instruments associated with hospital procedures is sterilized is paramount to the health can safety of the patients. The Sterile Processing Department (SPD) must ensure that these medical and surgical supplies are sterile, as well as cleaned, prepared, processed and transported for proper use.
Water plays a key role in the sterilization process of the medical supplies and surgical instruments, and it is recommended that the water quality of the Critical and Utility Waters used for these processes is managed and monitored per industry guidelines.
Routine Analytical Validation of the Utility and Critical Water quality helps ensure that the water treatment in medical device reprocessing are 1) prolonging the life of medical instrumentation, to ensure effectively functioning instrumentation, and more importantly, 2) minimizing the risk of adverse patient outcomes arising from contaminated medical devices.
Precept Environmental provides full service microbiological and analytical testing for the SPD Utility and Critical water sources. We use Independent Laboratories that specialize in the analysis associated with these types of water systems. This analysis may include the following, as recommended by the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) Technical Information Report:
- Mineral Analysis (Hardness, Chloride)
- Quality Analysis (pH, Conductivity)
- Endotoxins
- Heterotrophic Plate Counts
- Chemistry and High Purity Water Analyses
- Steam Quality Analysis
For any kind of analytical testing, the key to success is their interpretation. All results will be compared to industry guidelines such as the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) Technical Information Report 34:2014 recommended limits for Utility and Critical Water Systems. Should results indicate corrective action is necessary, we advise appropriate actions to help regain control.
