Royal Hobart Hospital Central Sterilising Department Royal Hobart Hospital Robots
Staff working in the Royal Hobart Hospital’s Central Sterilising Department (CSD) have a safer, healthier workplace with an ergonomically designed new unit and Australia’s first CSD robot. Since mid-June, K-Block’s new CSD has been
CSD is an infection-controlled, restricted area in K-Block Level 5. The CSD supports the existing nine operating theatres and inpatient and outpatient services in the RHH and five new operating theatres, procedure
cleaning, disinfecting and sterilising reusable
room, angiography and cardiac cath lab in K-Block,
medical instruments and equipment.
along with several other health facilities in Hobart.
Automated vehicles support staff by delivering
The CSD has three precincts: the dirty area that
around 100,000 packed hospital instrument trays to
includes the decontamination areas, washers and
the new sterilisers. This helps to reduce staff injury
dryers; the clean area which includes storage,
by removing the need for repetitious lifting.
assembly areas, sterilisers; and the cooling and
This is the first time any hospital in Australia has used the robot. Staff health and safety has been at the forefront of the CSD design which includes height-adjustable sinks and workstations. The modern CSD has significantly more space than
sterile stock area. The Lynx robotic automated guided vehicle robot was developed by Omron in conjunction with Atherton. The partnership of medical manufacturers/ suppliers Atherton and Device Technologies Australia
the old unit and has equipment new to the Royal
delivered $2.8 million in new CSD equipment
Hobart Hospital including an automated chemical
including two robots, for K-Block.
dosing system, de-boxing area, dedicated state-ofthe-art loan-set equipment room and electronic instrument tracker.
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The Health Advocate • AUGUST 2020
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