Computer-aided recording of automatic endoscope washing and disinfection processes as an integral part of medical documentation for quality assurance purposes.

Background: The reprocessing of medical endoscopes is carried out using automatic cleaning and disinfection machines. The documentation and archiving of records of properly conducted reprocessing procedures is the last and increasingly important part of the reprocessing cycle for flexible endoscopes.

Methods: This report describes a new computer program designed to monitor and document the automatic reprocessing of flexible endoscopes and accessories in fully automatic washer-disinfectors; it does not contain nor compensate the manual cleaning step.