Mr Aryan Shahabi-sirjani1, Mr Andrew Gibb1, Dr Jonathan Burdach1
1Nanosonics, Macquarie Park, Australia
Traceability is the linking of a patient record to a medical device reprocessing record. This is a unique challenge for ultrasound, as the versatility and portability of ultrasound devices has resulted in their expanded use across healthcare. The same probe could be used as a non-critical device, and later as a semi-critical device requiring high-level disinfection and traceability to the patient.
Establishing a linkage between reprocessing and the patient an ultrasound probe is used on is important, as it demonstrates duty of care and can manage potential outbreak situations. Australian and New Zealand medical device reprocessing standards require facilities to collect reprocessing cycle information, medical device identifiers, procedure information and patient details for each semi-critical or critical probe use.
It is important for facilities to implement traceability workflows for ultrasound probes that link the reprocessing record to the right patient. Proper reprocessing after probe use may protect the next patient, but will not protect the patient just examined. If a reprocessing record is linked to the previous patient, and not the patient the probe is to be used on, it will be extremely difficult to rule out the probe in the event of a patient infection or outbreak. Digitisation of traceability records can also benefit facilities by ensuring that information capture and labelling is standardised across the entire ultrasound reprocessing workflow. This can help reduce operator error and incomplete record keeping, as well as enhancing security.
Biography: Aryan is an infectious diseases clinical pharmacist, serving as global Medical Affairs Manager at Nanosonics. He has a breadth of experience in infection prevention and control, antimicrobial stewardship and clinical infectious diseases and microbiology.