STERILE INDICATOR
Tag Broken Instruments

Our nurses and techs place a small sterilization container lock on instrumentation that needs to go out for repair. This communicates to the central sterile department to not put the item back in its tray. They instead put it in the repair bin and replace it with a properly working instrument.

Many times after a case, the OR staff are in a hurry and forget to verbally communicate instrumentation problems to central sterile. With this simple system, staff can tag the instrument right on the sterile field or when cleaning up the case. That way the surgical team doesn't complain that they told central sterile an instrument was broken, but it ended up back in the OR.

Cheryl Jaczewski, RN, BS, CNOR, MLSO
St. Joseph Hospital
Cheektowaga, N.Y.
[email protected]