What are the most common reasons for sterilization failure using a heat sterilizer?
a. Inadequate precleaning of instruments b. Improper maintenance of equipment c. Cycle time too short or temperature too low d. Overloading or improper loading of sterilizer chamber e. Incompatible packaging material f. Interruption of sterilization cycle to add or remove an item. Multiple investigations have found that the most frequent cause of sterilization failure in human error. 4. What should a proper hand washing agent be expected to accomplish? At a minimum it should: 1) provide good mechanical cleansing of skin; 2) have the capacity to kill a variety of microorganisms if is used in a surgical settings; 3) have some residual antimicrobial effect to prevent re-growth of resident bacteria and fungi when used for surgical hand washing; and 4) be dispensed in a manner without risk of cross-contamination among HCW. The major concern is the presence of transient flora on the person’s hands. The goal is to wash off the flora, killing them with an anti-microbial agent is supplemental.
