Vital health care work done behind the scenes

Reprinted with permission from Atikokan Progress.

First, do no harm.

That is the start of Hippocrates’ famous advice to doctors, a spirit that has come to spread right across the field of healthcare.

You never see most of the work that goes in to meeting that objective. Medical device reprocessing is one area of that work, one of those absolutely vital things that happen almost entirely behind the scenes.

In a nutshell, it is ensuring that every piece of equipment that comes into contact with patients and/or is used by health care providers, is safe. Sterilization is the main tool used to achieve this safety. But as the stakes have gone up - as strains of antibiotic-resistant infection have become more common and the complexity of the health care system increased - the need for ever-more thorough processes for handling medical equipment and preparing it for use has grown.

There are generally three steps to the process: decontamination, assembly and sterilization, and storage and distribution. There are rigorous standards for each step in the procedure. Medical device reprocessing is an area Accreditation Canada looks at closely during hospital reviews.

For many years reprocessing was considered part of hospital stores operations, which focussed on making sure doctors and nurses had the equipment they needed to provide proper care. Today, reprocessing is becoming a field in its own right.

Several Ontario colleges offer MDR technician programs, and workers in the field can take a variety of on-line continuing education and upgrading programs through provincial and national organizations.

The Medical Device Reprocessing Assoc. of Ontario (MDRAO) was formed out of the Toronto Central Supply Room Group during the nineteen-sixties. It held its first conference as the Central Service Assoc. of Ontario in 1969. In 2016 it adopted the MDRAO name, and its September, 2019 conference in Toronto was its fiftieth.

Seven guest speakers highlighted that fiftieth conference: three microbiologists (including two professors from the University of Manitoba), a pair of information technology leaders, 3M’s director of global standards, and the founder of the Sterile Processing Education Charitable Trust, “a unique non-profit organization that provides sterile processing training and mentorship to healthcare workers in resource-constrained countries.”

It also included half a dozen professional workshops, an awards dinner, and vendor exhibitions.

The conference was unique in another way: an Atikokanite was involved in organizing it. Candia Anderson is the MDRD/Stores lead hand at AGH, and she attended the provincial association’s 2017 conference where she learned so much, and made so many contacts in the field, that when a position opened in the Northwestern Ontario chapter of the association she stepped up. A little more than a year ago she became president of the NWO chapter (known as LAMBDA in MDRAO circles), and thus a member of the provincial board. She was chosen provincial director of finance in June and was involved in planning the fiftieth anniversary conference.

She called the board a great team.

“We have been through a lot and in four months put on the best MDR conference yet,” she said. “I am grateful for the opportunities my participation has brought to AGH and the Northwest - and I am getting some southerners to understand the vast distances up here.”

At AGH, Anderson works closely with Maryanne MacDonald, the procurement agent, Tanis Lavallee, the utilization coordinator, and Marie Cornell, the MDRD/Stores manager.

MRDAO CONFERENCE At the Medical Device Reprocessing Association of Ontario conference earlier this month, Candia Anderson of AGH and Garry Bassi (Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital) present a thank you gift to guest speaker Dr. Josephus (Joost) van Doornmalen (centre), principal scientist with Steelco S.p.A., an Italian company that is a world leader in the manufacture of medical washers, disinfectors, and sterilizers. (“His research has the potential to change how sterilizers are tested,” said Anderson.) “Congratulations with your beautiful, well organised and successful event,” he told the association and attendees. “The feedback received from participants of your conference has been fantastic. It has been a marvellous experience!”  (MDRAO PHOTO)