Comparative evaluation of four hydrogen peroxide-based systems to decontaminate N95 respirators.

Objective: Protocols designed to facilitate N95 filtering facepiece respirator (FFR) decontamination by commercial sterilization devices do not recommend that operators verify the device's performance against pathogens deposited on FFRs. Here, we compared the treatment efficacy of 4 hydrogen peroxide-based systems that were authorized for N95 decontamination during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods: Suspensions prepared from ATCC 29213 and 44300, ATCC 6633, a vancomycin-resistant isolate (VRE), ATCC 25922, and ATCC 27853 colonies were inoculated onto nine 1-cm areas on a 3M 1805, 1860, 1860S, 1870+, 8210, 8110S, or 9105S FFR.

Optimizing the surgical instrument tray to immediately increase efficiency and lower costs in the operating room.

Background: Surgical trays are often poorly configured and can be ongoing sources of frustration and excess costs. We conducted an observational study to determine if the use of a customized mathematical inventory optimization model would result in a greater reduction in the number of instruments on a surgical tray than a clinician review of the tray.

Methods: Utilization of instruments on the major orthopedic tray at a large academic hospital was documented over 80 procedures.

Inventory Optimization in the Perioperative Care Department Using Kotter's Change Model.

Background: Perioperative services have been scrutinized in the context of cost containment in health care, particularly in the procurement and reprocessing of surgical instruments. Although solutions such as surgical instrument inventory optimization (IO) have been proposed, there is a paucity of literature on how to implement this change. The purpose of this project was to describe the implementation of an IO using Kotter's Change Model (KCM).

Decontaminating N95 Respirators for Reuse in a Hospital Setting.

With the global outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, hospitals in Canada and around the world have been forced to consider conservation strategies to ensure continued availability of personal protective equipment (PPE) for healthcare providers. To mitigate critical PPE shortages, Sinai Health System (Sinai Health), a large academic healthcare institution in Canada, has developed and operationalized a standard operating procedure for the collection, decontamination and reuse of N95 respirators and other single-use PPE using a vaporized hydrogen peroxide decontamination method. Sinai Health has incorporated stringent quality assurance steps to ensure that the N95 respirators are successfully decontaminated without deformation and are safe to use.