Proper Storage for Custom Surgical Trays

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A custom surgical tray is one of the most crucial equipment in a hospital setup. Essential as it is, this equipment should be taken care to enhance their longevity. Taking care of surgical instruments before keeping them is the surest method of protecting your tools. The ones that take care of properly last longer. Proper storage of instruments comes after you have properly cleaned them.

Preparation before storage

Preparation for storing the tray involves three levels;

• Cleaning

This is the initial step of storing your tray. Ensure you clean all the body fluids, blood, and other tissues. Dirt like dry soil may even damage your tray or make it tough to use. After washing, rinse the tray in cold, clean water. Avoid using hot water as it can cause protein substances to coagulate. You can soak the tray in cold water mixed with an enzymatic detergent. The detergent will help in dissolving the proteins on the instrument surface as well as breaking the oils. After that, you can now clean the tray in cold water manually. If there as an alternative for manual cleaning like mechanical cleaning, you can opt for it. Normally, mechanical washing involves the use of a washing machine to wash the tray. The machine cleans through multiple levels. Cold water is for removing the debris. Then a hot water bath followed by a blow dry with hot air. Use gloves as you do the cleaning, plastic apron, eye protection and a mask.

• Disinfecting

For high-level disinfection, both thermal are available. Boil the instrument in a 100 degrees water for some time, preferably one minute. Only some few bacterial spores don’t die during the boiling; it is imperative to remember that boiling will not sterilize equipment. Just submerge the tray into the boiling water. When you notice the temperature of the water exceeding one hundred degrees, turn down the heat so it can boil gently. After a minute, remove the instrument from the boiling water using a pair of disinfected tongs. It is important to remember here not to remove the tray in the water as it cools since it can be decontaminated.

• Sterilizing

Sterilization does away with all microorganisms. Autoclaving is a common method of sterilizing this equipment. However, you can use dry heat or chemical sterilants.

Cleaning is meant to remove dirt and other biological material that may have been present on the tray’s surface. It is easy to clean these instruments manually or using mechanically using water, detergent, and other enzymatic materials. Cleaning it thoroughly since biological materials can remain on the surface to and be a hindrance to subsequent steps of sterilization and disinfection.

Disinfecting this equipment can be done in multiple levels including; low-level disinfection, intermediate level disinfection and high-level disinfection.

• Low-level disinfection removes all vegetative bacteria, fungi, lipid virus and some non-lipid viruses from the tray surface in ten minutes or less.
• Intermediate-level disinfection kills tubercle bacilli, and lipid enveloped viruses, fungus spores, and some no lipid enveloped viruses and mycobacteria.
• High-level disinfection destroys all the organisms killed by the low and high-level disinfection levels aside from killing fungus spores

Sterilization kills all microorganisms certain chemical sterilants can be used as HLD disinfectants when used for shorter exposed durations. You can use autoclaving to do the disinfection.

After all the cleaning, disinfection, and sterilization, keep your tray in a place where they are not exposed to any more dirt and contaminants. If you don’t maintain the tray a safe place, you are going to pose a great danger in infecting the patient.