Cleaning medical devices at a hospital isn’t quite the same as washing dishes or other everyday items at home. While you might be able to run your plates through the dishwasher or throw your clothes in the washing machine, medical equipment requires following specific procedures to avoid common challenges of disinfecting hospital equipment. According to this video, many medical devices are capable of being reused as long as they are properly cleaned and sanitized.
Of course, some items can only be used once in medical settings so those are discarded rather than cleaned.
The first step of cleaning medical devices involves soaking them in a specialized solution to break down bodily fluids and start the cleansing process. Next, cleansed instruments make their way through a decontamination machine, which is a machine that has been designed for the task. Between high pressure and high heat, this machine ensures that the instruments make it through this process without bacteria or germs remaining on them. After machines have cleaned and sanitized the instruments, staff members organize them so they are ready to use in the required departments. With a human eye, they can discard damaged instruments and call attention to instruments that may need to be cleaned to appropriate standards. This process continues innovating with new research.
