Importance of Precision Control in Cleaning

Washing instruments such as washer disinfectors (WD) may cause defects by secular use and careless handling. When these instruments cause defects, cleaning is poor, in other words, contaminants are supposed to remain on the surface of the instruments. However, it is very difficult to detect residual contaminants accurately and in real time in the judgement of cleanliness by the most common visual inspection at present and it is supposed that operators become aware of defects of these instruments when they progress and considerably large amounts of residual contaminants are observed after washing. In fact, there are several experiences that when defects progressed considerably even in our operation department, the operators became aware of defects of these instruments. In the present study, we washed commercially available cleanliness evaluation indicators (TOSI) and contaminated instruments together daily using a WD and recorded the scores, and in addition, with a measurement kit (Pro-tect, wipe method), we daily measured the protein adhered to the instruments before and after washing using a WD and an ultrasonic washer. As a result, it was found that TOSI and Pro-tect could detect disorders of the instruments in real time. In short, the quality of cleaning can be guaranteed by performing the precision control of the cleaning process using a TOSI or Pro-tect daily.