CDPHE Sterile Processing Department (SPD) Needs Assessment

 

To: Colorado healthcare partners (e.g., sterile processing department, infection prevention, perioperative, quality, facility leadership) providing services, and/or responsible for the reprocessing of medical instruments (e.g., surgical instruments, endoscopes, ultrasound probes, ophthalmic devices, and dental instruments).   From: CDPHE HAI/AR Program   The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment is launching an effort to prevent breaches in infection control related to instrument and device reprocessing. Infection control breaches during instrument and device reprocessing have been identified with increasing frequency in Colorado in recent years. By encouraging health care facilities to complete self assessment and implement prevention measures, CDPHE hopes to help healthcare partners reduce the risk of medical errors and communicable disease transmission, and related patient notification, and assure quality of care and patient safety. The purpose of this survey is to assess current infection prevention needs of Sterile Processing Departments (SPD) and non-centralized reprocessing locations in hospitals and ambulatory surgical centers (including endoscopy centers). The survey will guide the development of an SPD toolkit to support SPD programs and improve standardization of best practices for infection prevention across all reprocessing settings. Survey findings will also inform CDPHE's outreach and allocation of prevention resources. The Healthcare-Associated Infections and Antimicrobial Resistance (HAI/AR) program in the Communicable Diseases branch will analyze the survey data for the purpose of quality improvement. Survey data will not be used for regulation. We will share a de-identified summary of findings with participating facilities. We may discuss aggregate data with members of leadership within the Division of Disease Control and Public Health Response who oversee HAI/AR program activities.  We encourage all health care facilities to share this survey link with a multidisciplinary team involved in the SPD program, including frontline staff responsible for the reprocessing of instruments and devices, infection prevention, quality programs/managers, leadership, etc. The greater the number of surveys completed for each facility, the greater the ability to identify needs and target improvement.  The survey should take no longer than 15 minutes to complete. Respondents should be familiar with facility procedures and processes. However, there is no expectation that respondents conduct detailed research or observation. The goal is to gather current perceptions of best practices for infection prevention that are in place. Please complete the survey by Thursday, July 13th.  For further information:  For questions, please contact the Healthcare Associated Infections team at cdphe_hai_ar@state.co.us.