Disinfection and Sterilization in Health Care Facilities

Guideline for Disinfection and Sterilization in Healthcare Facilities, 2008

Cleaning Failure to adequately clean instrument results in higher bioburden, protein load, and salt concentration. These will decrease sterilization efficacy. Bioburden The natural bioburden of used surgical devices is 10 to 10 organisms (primarily vegetative bacteria), which is substantially below the 10-10 spores used with biological indicators. Pathogen type Spore-forming organisms are most ...

Guideline for Disinfection and Sterilization in Healthcare Facilities, 2008

The issue of whether low-level tolerance to germicides selects for antibiotic-resistant strains is unsettled but might depend on the mechanism by which tolerance is attained. For example, changes in the permeability barrier or efflux mechanisms might affect susceptibility to both antibiotics and germicides, but specific changes to a target site might not. Some researchers have suggested that us...

Disinfection and Sterilization

Disinfection and sterilization: an overview.

All invasive procedures involve contact by a medical device or surgical instrument with a patient's sterile tissue or mucous membranes. The level of disinfection or sterilization is dependent on the intended use of the object: critical (items that contact sterile tissue such as surgical instruments), semicritical (items that contact mucous membrane such as endoscopes), and noncritical (devices ...

New disinfection and sterilization methods.

New disinfection methods include a persistent antimicrobial coating that can be applied to inanimate and animate objects (Surfacine), a high-level disinfectant with reduced exposure time (ortho-phthalaldehyde), and an antimicrobial agent that can be applied to animate and inanimate objects (superoxidized water). New sterilization methods include a chemical sterilization process for endoscopes t...