When community hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) are visited by accreditation agencies like The Joint Commission (TJC) or DNV, they are held to the same strict endoscope documentation requirements as academic medical centers. While it may seem unfair for these smaller facilities with access to fewer resources to be held to the same strict […]

The Joint Commission (TJC), the United States Food & Drug Administration (FDA) and several other regulatory and accreditation agencies have recently put more focus on flexible endoscopes in their guidance to US hospitals and surgery centers. It comes as no surprise, as over the last decade the number of reported outbreaks based on inadequately reprocessed

Because endoscopes are reusable medical instruments, one of their biggest risks is the very real possibility of passing diseases to patients through contact with inadequately disinfected scopes. Though the risk of passing diseases through scopes is relatively low, the danger is always there, especially when high-level disinfection (HLD) protocols aren’t closely followed. One area where