Extra-long scopes, such as small bowel enteroscopes, can often be a challenge for endoscopy departments to track and manage. Their long bodies do not fit easily in to the standard scope storage cabinets that are typically used to store all scopes. Because of this challenge, most hospitals store their extra-long scopes in standard storage cabinets by ‘snaking’ the scopes in an ‘s’ formation so that they hang without touching the bottom of the cabinet.
While there is no standardized guidance around this practice, The Joint Commission (TJC) and their surveyors are known to point this out as a risk to hospitals that store extra-long scopes like this. The rationale seems to be that scopes, when hung in a snake-like fashion with ‘s’ curves in the body of the scope, cannot properly drain any moisture that remains in the scopes after reprocessing. With TJC frowning upon facilities that store their extra-long scopes like this, what options can hospitals use to meet TJC recommendations?
Mobile Aspects’ iRIScope scope tracking system offers an ‘XL’ model of their scope storage cabinet that is purpose-built for storing extra-long scopes. These storage cabinets include an ergonomic elevator mechanism that makes it easy for people of all heights to hang and retrieve extra-long scopes from the cabinets. Because the extra-long scopes are stored without any ‘s’ curves, any moisture can drain properly and TJC recommendations are satisfied. iRIScope also comes standard with many other features that improves tracking of extra-long scopes. The smart cabinets, outfitted with RFID technology, automatically gather all transaction data regarding scope usage and reprocessing. With this data, the system uses artificial intelligence to alert users when scopes are hung in clean storage without first going through all of the required reprocessing steps. iRIScope can also alert users about scopes that have been missing for an extended period and can alert users when scopes have passed their hang-time limits and need to be reprocessed. A customer that recently went through their TJC inspection noted that their surveyor called iRIScope “the best scope tracking system they have seen”. The surveyor noted that the system handled the extra-long scopes with ease and effortlessly kept track of all scope usage records, including associating each scope to the proper patient.