Time-dependent persistence of blood as a contaminant in medical device processing

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Healthcare Associated Infection Prevention
• Sterilization Science

Background:

• Effective cleaning of medical equipment is crucial for patient safety.
• Previous research indicated coagulated, but not dried, blood is difficult to remove.
• Understanding blood residue persistence is vital for sterile processing departments (CSSD).

Purpose of the Study:

• To verify findings on blood residue cleaning difficulty using real surgical instruments.
• To assess the impact of time on blood persistence in surgical instrument joints.
• To inform validation practices and cleaning processes in CSSDs.

Main Methods:

• Utilized surgical forceps joints to simulate realistic instrument contamination.
• Contaminated instruments were analyzed under conditions mimicking clinical settings.
• Measured the persistence of blood residues over time in instrument joints.

Main Results:

• Significant time-dependent differences in blood persistence were observed in surgical instrument joints within the initial hours post-contamination.
• Blood residues showed varying degrees of adherence based on the time elapsed since contamination.
• Findings confirmed the critical window where blood is most challenging to remove.

Conclusions:

• The time factor significantly influences the difficulty of removing blood from surgical instrument joints.
• Current cleaning validation practices may need adjustment to account for time-dependent blood persistence.
• Optimizing cleaning protocols in CSSDs is necessary to address the challenges posed by partially dried blood residues.