3103 - What’s in Your Endoscope? Ameliorations for Patient Safety

Session Description: Endoscopes are an essential part of medical care, both therapeutic and diagnostic. The true incidence of endoscope-related events and clinical implications are difficult to estimate. Endogenous infections are related to the procedure and patient, while exogenous infections are related to contamination of endoscopes that are improperly processed or unidentified defects harboring microorganisms. The latest guidance for flexible and semi-flexible endoscope reprocessing provides considerations for quality control and an emphasis on patient safety.

This presentation provides a tertiary-care facility’s experiences in verifying endoscopic safety. This includes verifying time to processing, and compliance with policies for cleaning and reprocessing of endoscopes. Routine microbiological surveillance and the use of borescopes to ensure proper processing, evaluate for dryness and physical damage and retention of debris. Patient safety is assured by clinical blood culture surveillance within 30 days of endoscopic procedure.

In addition, the presenters will highlight the updates in the endoscope reprocessing guidelines and review practical steps that could be implemented by infection prevention and endoscopic teams in healthcare settings. Establishing a collaborative, interdisciplinary team, with buy-in from key stakeholders and leadership, will enable them to create ergonomic processes ensuring high reliability.

The presentation should enable infection preventionists to develop and implement step by step strategies to assure endoscopic safety. By the end of this presentation, IP are expected to have the elements of a well written policies and procedures which encompass manufacturer’s instructions for use, drying and storage, documented history of endoscope repairs and length-of-time in service as well as verification of cleaning processes that are key to patient safety. In essence, the presenters will review how you can move from current practice to adopting some or all the evidence-based guidelines to enhance your endoscope reprocessing program, measure success and ensure patient safety.