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Mission Critical: Working Conditions for Reprocessing Techs
A
re your reprocessing techs working in conditions that foster their best performance? In many facilities,
that’s not the case, said James Davis, MSN, RN, a certified health care environmental manager and senior infection prevention analyst at ECRI Institute, who spends much of his time auditing and consulting with gastroenterology practices across the country.
“I’ve seen a lot of facilities that do it right—and others that just make do with what they have,” Mr. Davis told Priority Report. “That may mean that if you get another reprocessing machine, you fit it in the closet in the back next to the two existing machines, with techs bumping into each other. Unfortunately, that’s fairly prevalent in the field; space is not well thought out, and there is little attention paid to ergonomics and technician comfort. People think, ‘Oh, this is just where we reprocess scopes, so it doesn’t require much attention,’” he said. But, he stressed, “these are mission-critical staff members, and they can’t do their best work in poorly designed environments.” see Mission, page 46
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Endoscope Reprocessing & Infection Control
