Reuse Practices of Single-Use Medical Devices in Secondary and Tertiary Hospitals

Abstract

Background: Reusing single-use medical devices can have serious risks for patients. Objective: To determine the type of single-use medical devices being re-used and management methods. Methods: This descriptive research study aimed to determine the type of single-use medical devices being reused and management methods among 96 heads of Central Sterile Supply Departments in secondary and tertiary hospitals under the Ministry of Public Health, Thailand using the Reuse of Single-use Medical Devices Questionnaires which were developed from literature reviews. The data were collected between October and December, 2014 with a response rate of 87.50% and analyzed using descriptive statistics. Results: The results showed that 82 hospitals (97.62%) re-use single-use medical devices. Sixty-sevensingle-use medical devices were re-used. The groups of devices most reprocessed were respiratory tract system devices (96.34%), devices for surgery (80.49%), and urinary tract system devices (71.95%), respectively. The most practiced management processes of used single-use medical devices included validation of the sterilization process (100%), the inspection of reprocessed single-use medical devices (90.24%), proper storage of reprocessed single-use medical devices (89.02%), the packaging of reprocessed single-use medical devices (87.80%) and the reprocessing area for single-use medical devices (68.29%). The least practiced management processes included informed written consent from the patients to reuse single-use medical devices (4.88%), authorization allowing the reuse of single-use medical devices (7.32%), the distribution of reprocessed single-use medical devices (7.32%), formation of a billing schedule of single-use medical devices (7.32%), and identifying when to discard the reused single-use medical devices (13.41%). The cleaning of used single-use medical devices was one step of the management process which was not practiced properly by all hospitals. Conclusion: The study results indicate that it is necessary to develop guidelines for reprocessingsingle-use medical devices and monitoring the practices of responsible personnel, especially regarding the cleaning process and deciding when to discard the devices.