Safe to Handle? Comparing Manually and Machine-Washed Medical Devices

Safe to Handle? Comparing Manually and Machine-Washed Medical Devices.

The goal of medical device reprocessing is to ensure that a given device is ready for safe use on the next patient. Effective cleaning of devices is critical to achieving this goal. Device cleaning also has had an ancillary goal: rendering the device safe for handling with ungloved hands by sterile processing personnel. Such personnel are tasked with preparing the device for further reprocessin...

Implanted Medical Devices Safe from Hackers

Implantable medical devices— such as insulin pumps, cardiac pacemakers, and cardiac defibrillators—have become increasingly popular since being introduced about 50 years ago. In the US alone, 2.6 million people rely on IMDs. An increasing number of today’s devices are equipped with wireless technology enabling, for example, remote checks by healthcare workers. “Patients often receive at-home, b...

Safe Medical Devices Act of 1990.

Researchers Fight to Keep Implanted Medical Devices Safe from Hackers

Implantable medical devices— such as insulin pumps, cardiac pacemakers, and cardiac defibrillators—have become increasingly popular since being introduced about 50 years ago. In the US alone, 2.6 million people rely on IMDs. An increasing number of today’s devices are equipped with wireless technology enabling, for example, remote checks by healthcare workers. “Patients often receive at-home, b...

When is it safe to manually lift a patient?

In 1994 the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) released the Revised NIOSH Lifting Equation-an ergonomics assessment tool that can be used to calculate the recommended weight limit for two-handed manual-lifting tasks. However, NIOSH excluded assessment of patient-handling tasks from the uses of the revised equation, arguing that such tasks involve too many variables. T...