Posts Tagged ‘ Single Use Device Reprocessing ’

Should Hospitals have Limits in how Green they go?

March 2nd, 2010. By AbiK

Some things were just meant to be used once and one time only. Dixie® cups. Band-Aids®. Drinking straws. Envelopes you lick, to name a few. But how about laparoscopic ports, surgical scissors and pulse oximeters?

Seems some hospitals—in both an effort to be “green” as well as to introduce some cost controls—are recycling some surgical items labeled for one-time use (aka, “single-use devices” or SUDs). According to an article in the Baltimore Sun (2/25/10), the number of hospitals doing the recycling is growing; in fact, the article quotes Dr. Martin A. Makary of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine as stating that about a “quarter of the nation’s hospitals now do some reprocessing”.

There are proponents on both sides of the hospital recycling debate. On the one hand, you’ve got those who argue that certain implements have historically been collected after use and sent back to the manufacturer where they were reprocessed—not necessarily under any regulatory watchful eye—and repackaged for re-use. The argument would then go: wouldn’t you rather reprocess them yourself and have more control over things?

And you’ve also got the January 2008 report from the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) titled Reprocessed Single-Use Medical Devices: FDA Oversight Has Increased, and Available Information Does Not Indicate That Use Presents an Elevated Health Risk. The conclusion of that report, as written about in an article at the Journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges (March, 2010), is that “although available FDA data fail to allow for rigorous in-depth comparisons, reprocessed SUDs do not present an increased health risk when compared with new nonreprocessed devices. Of the 434 adverse events reported to the FDA between 2003 and 2006 in which reprocessed SUDs were identified, only 65 actually did involve a reprocessed device, and all adverse events were similar to those reported for new devices.” 

Ok. My faith (or lack thereof) in the FDA’s oversight of all things medical notwithstanding, the obvious question is does anyone really want recycled surgical tools to be used on them without their knowledge and consent? There’s just something a little…discomforting…about lying on that chilly operating table, bright lights aglow, feeling that IV starting to flow and wondering whether that anesthesia conduction needle has been thoroughly disinfected. I’d prefer to have my thoughts on other things at that moment.

Tags: Green Hospitals, Single Use Device Reprocessing
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