HOw to clean your instruments:

 Part 1 of a 5 part series:
How to clean your instruments- Sanitech Australia Established 1996
How clean is clean?
 
‘You’ve got to prepare yourself for the worst-case scenario’
 
Clean. Does it mean not dirty and uncontaminated? Yes. Cleanliness is defined in the Oxford Dictionary, as, “free from dirt or contaminated matter, unsoiled”.
 
But here’s the really big point. With the increase of numerous diseases especially iatrogenic contamination we so desperately want to avoid, perhaps it is time to go back to basics and look at cleanliness as a mean of preventing the spread of these diseases. No-one doubts the benefits of correct sterilisation and it is assumedthat all clinical practises sterilise their instruments. However, are those sterilised instruments really clean?
 
You know, the owner of a successful Instrument Repair business comments that all too often, instruments are sent to him for repair after they had already been “cleaned”. Amazingly when the instruments are dismantled they will often contain old blood and debris! It is likely that sterilized or “cooked” blood and debris on an instrument may be dislodged during a following procedure. Sure, the debris may have been ‘sterilized’, but contaminated instruments or utensils are not sterile, full stop. 
 
So, the cleaning process should not only involve the removal of micro-organisms and body substances from the surface of an instrument; it should also involve the removal of these micro-organisms from all joints of instruments and parts of equipment.
 
Thorough cleaning is a necessary part of both disinfection and sterilisation. In the past and unfortunately today, in most dental and podiatry clinics outside of a hospital, warm soapy water, to remove visible material, is STILL used. 
In today’s Coronavirus climate of resistant bacteria, is “all visible material” good enough? Is warm soapy water used by hand or in the ‘ultrasonic’ good enough?  No and you don’t need a degree in physics to understand why.  Since 1987 Australian Standard AS2945 stated “hot detergent washing stage 50oc to 70oc min 2 minutes, plus AS 4815 and 4187  both state in large print: CAUTION ULTRASONIC CLEANERS CLEAN BUT DO NOT DISINFECT INSTRUMENTS.
 
The question arises why do the accreditation people still give Podiatrist, Dental and Orthodontists and the like, a tick is beyond comprehension!!!,especially when these Standards are developed to protect the health and safety of the Australian public.
 
You know, ignorance of the law is no excuse when dealing with devices to be used on live humans.
 
If you’ve ever had a complaint against you, you’ll know just how distressing it can be. Not to mention the time and effort that goes into addressing it … providing records, correspondence and “please explaining” yourself.
And you’ve got to agree … receiving a complaint is something you don’t wish on your worst enemy and it’s something you want to avoid at all costs.
 
So “Why is your clinic” 

• Handwashing only and not disinfecting your instruments? 
• Using an ultrasonic cleaner when ultrasonic cleaners do not disinfect?
• Drying your instruments by hand?
• Running the risk of your staff receiving a needle stick injury.
• Not complying with all necessary standards set by the Board of Australia in related to infection control including the reprocessing of instruments under AS/NZS 4187
• Inviting the *heavy artillery to pay a visit to your clinic, to close you down.

Have you ever considered what it would cost you to be closed by the department?
There really is a simple and easy way, just visit www.sanitech.com.au to view all the features and benefits of the Sanitech Benchtop Instrument Washer/Disinfector.
 
  SANITECH - DESIGNED TO WORK SMART
*Heavy artillery = WorkSafe (More inspectors more inspections), NSQHS, DHS, NHMRC.
 
 

 
Part 2 of a part 5 series 
How to clean your instruments- Sanitech Australia Established 1996
 
‘If you cheat on your roadwork in the dark of the morning, you’ll get found out under bright lights’. Joe Fraizer
 
The intent of disinfection is to minimise the risk of infection to patients and the workforce from contaminated instruments”
 
The cleaning of reusable instruments prior to heat sterilization is a crucial, yet sometimes misunderstood, infection-control procedure. If biological contamination and other debris are not removed properly, the remaining mater can interfere with microbial inactivation during a sterilization cycle. This compromises the process.
 
There really is an easy way, just visit www.sanitech.com.au to view the Sanitech Benchtop Instrument Washer/Disinfector, that will:
 
1. Wash More Effectively;  that would clear debris from joints and parts etc. where the human hand will not.
2. Use Hotter Water; hotter than the human hand can withstand and control this temperature for the required disinfection, i.e.; 80oc  for 10 minutes.( Australian Standards 4187,)
3. Guarantee Consistency; regardless of the time of day or the pressures in the clinic, the machine will always clean the same way, for the same amount of time without short cuts.
4. Reduce Staff Accidents; No longer will staff have to wash and scrub sharp instruments by hand, they could be securely loaded into a tray. Mechanical washing also reduces unnecessary splash and aerosol contamination incidents.  
5. Australian Specially designed racking holds all instruments in the vertical position allowing exposure to greater volumes of water.
6. Built to Australian Standard 4187 without the need of additional options to satisfy compliance
 7. Save Staff Time; Freeing up staff to do other functions is an all-important concept.
8. One Button touch control.  
9. Cool touch door
10. Extremely quiet 37dB
 
Think about it.
Timeless looks styled with Australian made SANITECH range of Surgical Instrument Thermal Washer/Disinfectors makes thorough cleaning an attainable reality. Even most homes in Australia live by their domestic dishwashers. (www.sanitech.com.au)
Draw A Line In The Sand 
Set your clinic apart by using the state-of-the-art Sanitech Surgical Instrument Thermal Washer/Disinfector to wash and disinfect you reusable instruments, especially when your association states; you are required to comply with all necessary standards set by the Board of Australia in related to infection control including the reprocessing of instruments under AS/NZS 4187
 
All practitioners and practice owners should have in place and comply with, an Infection Control Management Plan (ICMP) under the Public Health Act 2005. ICMPs prevent or minimise the risk of infection in relation to the provision of declared health care services
 SANITECH - DESIGNED TO WORK SMART

 
Part 3 of a part 5 series 
How to clean your instruments- Sanitech Australia Established 1996
                                                                                                                                                           
‘Experience was merely the name men gave to their mistakes’                   Oscar Wilde
 
 
Australian made SANITECH Series 8200 THERMAL INSTRUMENT WASHER DISINFECTORS complies with AS 4187. “ Code of practice for cleaning, disinfecting and sterilising reusable medical and surgical instruments and equipment, and maintenance of associated environments in health care facilities”.
 
Seat-of-the-pants infection control is for amateurs, not professionals. You can’t compete in today’s technologically enabled COVID-19 world with yesterday’s outdated, tactics or techniques.
 
Now, you won’t have to guess any more. No more useless time wasting speculation about length of cycle. No longer will staff be able to short-circuit the washing and disinfecting program.
 
Let me explain just one reason why. Dr. Arnand Deva, a prominent researcher into hepatitis B, has stated “We’ve already shown that if you don’t clean instruments properly there is a 100% chance of transmission of hepatitis B infection.” 
 
Well, no more. SANITECH Series 8200 THERMAL INSTRUMENT WASHER DISINFECTORS’ operating cycle follows a fixed program during which the water is heated to 82 degrees in the disinfecting stage, fully meeting the requirements of 80 degrees for ten minutes. The complete cycle consists of a pre rinse, followed by the hot wash with detergent, a hot water rinse cycle at 65 degrees and then the disinfecting cycle at 80 degrees for 10 minutes. Hot water connection is recommended, and a total operating time is 40 - 45 minutes. alternatively if connected to cold water the total time could be extended up to 20 minutes.
The total water consumption is only 10 litres. (www.sanitech.com.au)
 
By encouraging more and more practitioners and their staff, to re-evaluate the notion of cleanliness and the use of thermal machines, it can be said that diseases could be more easily contained. Apart from the obvious professional responsibility being exercised, a new dimension of care for your client is added.
 
You’re probably wondering. There is just so much that is written and printed about sterilisation and infection control these days that it would be easy to become bored or complacent. It seems that everyone has an idea or a barrow to push. However with increasing pressures, expectations, Standards and litigation, we need to heed the important messages.
 
In our rapidly changing world it is getting harder to separate fact from fiction. Perhaps we should all live smarter not harder, be safer not quicker, and be practical not complicated. 
At home, with your time constraints, you simply pay someone else to help you with the housework, gardening, mowing the lawn, washing and ironing, washing the car - even shopping and cooking. We are conditioned to make the best use of our time at home; perhaps it would be smart to condition ourselves to make the best use of our time at work also. 
 
But, what does this mean to you? Your energy is your greatest asset, you have to keep up to date, take courses, think, meet, plan, act, review, set goals, manage money, be nice to people and pursue quality.
It is really incredible how such a simple decision will avoid the stress of cleanliness by utilizing an Australian made timeless SANITECH Series 8200 BENCHTOP INSTRUMENT THERMAL WASHER/DISINFECTOR. (www.sanitech.com.au)
 SANITECH - DESIGNED TO WORK SMART
 
 
Part 4 of a part 5 Series 
How to clean your instruments- Sanitech Australia Established 1996
 
‘A leader who is through learning … is through’              John Wooden
Legal Issues
Infection control obligations under the National Law
“As regulators of the profession, we act to protect the public. We take breaches in infection control standards seriously. Consequences for non-compliance with appropriate infection control measures are significant for practitioners, and may be for patients and the community. 
Requirements for registered dental practitioners
Under the National Law, you must have access to and make sure your practice meets the infection control standards listed in the Board’s Guidelines on infection control. 
This includes the National Health and Medical Research Council Australian guidelines for the prevention and control of infection in healthcare. 
We expect registered practitioners to practise in a way that maintains and enhances public health” 1
 
“If you’ve ever had a complaint against you, you’ll know just how distressing it can be. Not to mention the time and effort that goes into addressing it … providing records, correspondence and “please explaining” yourself.
 
And you’ve got to agree … receiving a complaint is something you don’t wish on your worst enemy and it’s something you want to avoid at all costs”. 2
 
“When non-compliance with the regulations happens it is inevitable that a problem or injury may occur”.3
 
Staff safety is also a critical factor these days. It is now a reality that a number of blood borne viruses, including hepatitis B and C and HIV can infect health care workers. Under Australia’s Occupational Health and Safety Act there is a requirement for the employer to provide a safe working environment, safe system of work, safe procedures and equipment and education and training to assist workers perform their work safely. 
Infection control is a matter of risk management whilst providing health care.
 
Best practice
Why use thermal disinfection?

1. AHPRA requires compliance with Australian Standard
2. Australian Standard AS/NZS 4187 states: 
3. CAUTION ULTRASONIC CLEANERS CLEAN BUT DO NOT DISINFECT INSTRUMENTS.
4. Hot Wash cycle: Hot water, maintained between 500C and 550C temperature for 2 minutes
5. Hot Rinse cycle: Raises the hot water temperature to 650C for 2 minutes
6. Disinfecting cycle: Hot water, sprayed from nozzles, raises the temperature of the instruments to be disinfected and the internal surfaces of the chamber to not less than 800C and maintains the temperature for at least 10 minutes.
7. Instruments are not sterile without effective cleaning?
8. It’s not clean until it has been thermal disinfected.
9. Prevention is better than cure- and that applies to equipment too.
10. Complacency not an option.

In the washer-disinfector, thermal disinfection takes place at temperatures above 80oC maintained for a period of not less than 10 minutes. 
 
It is known that if all surgical practices take seriously the responsibility to ensure infection cannot be transmitted between patients by observing their routine procedures and ensuring a high standard of care for all. SANITECH is here to help and assist you to make Australia an even cleaner place. 
 
For more information on the SANITECH Series 8200 BENCHTOP INSTRUMENT THERMAL WASHER/DISINFECTOR  www.sanitech.com.au  E-mail: info@sanitech.com.au
 
    1The Dental Board and AHPRA Fact sheet July 2015
2 Dr Stefanie Toerien Australian Dentist #81 Sept-Oct 2019
                3 Dr Roy Hardman (PhD), Australasian Dentist, p120, Mar-Apr 2019
 
 SANITECH - DESIGNED TO WORK SMART
 

Part 5 of a part 5 Series 
How to clean your instruments- Sanitech Australia Established 1996
 
‘Today is only one day in all the days that will ever be. But what will happen in all other days that ever come can depend on what you do today’     Ernest Hemingway
 
OK, Here’s The Really Important Point. It’s Called
The Correct Procedure to Wash and Disinfect your reusable instruments as per AS/NZS 4187.
 
I’ll get right to the point, over the years if you have been washing your instruments by hand, then using an ultrasonic cleaner; your instruments have never been disinfected and correctly sterilized.  The fact is, your whole exercise of washing and validating the sterilizing cycle has been a pure waste of time and money.
Before the *heavy artillery pays a visit to your clinic, let us share with you the correct way to wash and disinfect your instruments.
Unless you have a reprocessing of reusable medical devices (RMD’s) policy and procedure in your clinic, compliant with AS/NZS4187, your instruments will not have been disinfected. The aim of cleaning is to remove microbial, organic and inorganic soil. 
Ideally, cleaning is performed using an automatic instrument washer/disinfector. Thorough cleaning of all instruments and equipment is an essential prerequisite in disinfection and sterilization process.
SANITECH Instrument Washer/Disinfector is designed to be connected to your hot water supply and 10amp power supply to pre-rinse, wash, rinse and disinfect instruments with the following temperature ranges:
 
The washing and disinfecting processes automatically as set out in AS2945 follows:-
Pre-rinse cycle
Water sprayed from the nozzles to flush and cleanse the instruments of gross soil for a period of 2 minutes.
At the completion, the pre-rinse water is pumped to waste.
Hot Wash cycle
Hot water, maintained between 500C and 550C temperature, sprayed from the nozzles for a period of not less than two (2) minutes will effectively cleanse all external surfaces of the load. At the commencement of this stage a suitable quantity of non-foaming Sanitech detergent will be automatically injected into the wash water.
At the completion, the wash water is pumped to waste.
Hot Rinse cycle
Hot water, raises the temperature to 650C is sprayed from the nozzles around the load surface and over the walls of the chamber until all surfaces have been satisfactory rinsed of wash water at 650C for a period of not less than two (2) minutes
At the completion, the water is pumped to waste.
Disinfecting cycle
Hot water, sprayed from nozzles, raises the temperature of the instruments to be disinfected and the internal surfaces of the chamber to not less than 800C and maintains the temperature for at least 10 minutes.
At the completion, the water is pumped to waste.
Cycle completed. Your Instruments are now clean, disinfected ready for sterilizing.
 
SANITECH “Australian made and Designed Instrument Baskets” hold your instruments in the vertical position, which allows your instruments to dry at the completion of the cycle which saves you the task of drying all the instruments.
 
Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care states: The Australian Standard AS/NZS 4187 is the national standard most commonly used and the latest version became operational in December 2016.
UP GRADE TO SANITECH Instrument Washer/Disinfector. Visit Sanitech.com.au
www.sanitech.com.au  E-mail: info@sanitech.com.au
 
 SANITECH - DESIGNED TO WORK SMART
 
*Heavy artillery = WorkSafe (More inspectors more inspections), NSQHS, DHS, NHMRC.
​

20/05/2020
DISINFECTING your  instruments
The intent of disinfection is to minimise the risk of infection to patients and the workforce from contaminated instruments.
The cleaning of reusable instruments prior to heat sterilization is a crucial, yet sometimes misunderstood, infection-control procedure. If biological contamination and other debris are not removed properly, the remaining mater can interfere with microbial inactivation during a sterilization cycle. This compromises the process.
The ultimate goal of infection control practices is to prevent infection from occurring in the first place. Special attention is needed to prevent cross-contamination when instruments are processed for reuse. Furthermore, all surgical instrument patient care utensils and reusable non-invasive instruments must be thoroughly washed and disinfected before they can be successfully sterilized. Since this cleaning and disinfection step is so crucial, the capabilities and quality of a facility’s washer/disinfector become critical factors for effective reprocessing and infection prevention.
Have you ever considered what it would cost you to be closed by the department?
Transform your clinic by using the state-of-the-art Sanitech Surgical Instrument Thermal Washer/Disinfector to wash and disinfect you reusable instruments, especially when your association states; you are required to comply with all necessary standards set by the Board of Australia in related to infection control including the reprocessing of instruments under AS/NZS 4187.
 It is really incredible how such a simple decision will avoid the stress of cleanliness by utilizing an Australian made timeless SANITECH Series 8200 BENCHTOP SURGICAL INSTRUMENT THERMAL WASHER/DISINFECTOR. Visit www.sanitech.com.au/products to view all the features and benefits of the Sanitech Benchtop Surgical Instrument Washer/Disinfector.
 
SANITECH - DESIGNED TO WORK SMART