Specifications

10. STORING STERILIZED MATERIALS
50
STORING
STERILIZED
MATERIALS
INTRODUCTION
The sterilized material must be adequately treated and stored to maintain its sterility over time,
until its use.
Inadequate storage can cause rapid recontamination.
This leads to problems regardless of what you do since you will either be using
recontaminated material (most of the time unconsciously), placing the user and patient at risk,
or you will have to run the sterilization cycle again, with an inevitable waste of time and
resources.
For this reason, we think it will be useful to provide several basic suggestions, leaving the
operator the task of further study of specific texts.
HANDLING
Assuming that the sterilizer is located in a clean place, free of dust and not too damp, the
following precautions should be taken when handling and/or carrying sterile material:
1. Remove the load from the sterilization chamber wearing gloves
and a clean, or even
better, sterilized smock
. As an additional precaution, wear a protective mask on your face;
2. Rest the tray on a dry, suitably clean and disinfected surface. Take care to distance or, at
any rate, separate
the sterile material from the area where contaminated material is kept
waiting to be sterilized;
3. Touch the material and/or instruments as little as possible, taking extreme care not
to cut
or damage the wrappings;
4. Let the instruments cool
before any transport (and subsequent storage). If necessary for
transport, transfer the material using dry, clean and disinfected containers. The containers
must be closed or, if open, covered with clean cloths.
STORAGE
Sterile material waiting for used must be stored using the appropriate techniques. These will
significantly slow
recontamination:
1. Store the material and/or instruments in the protective wrappings that were used during
sterilization. Do not
wrap the instruments after sterilization since, in addition to being
useless and completely senseless, is also potentially damaging;
2. Store the material in a dry
, suitably clean and disinfected place, far from the area where
infected material passes. If possible, use closed compartments equipped with ultraviolet
light;
3. Identify
the sterile material by attaching the sterilization data (attaching a copy of the
printed report or an adhesive label);
4. First use the material that has been stored the longest (FIFO, "First In First Out"). This
results in material that is homogeneously stored
, avoiding storing for too long, with the
consequent risks.
5. Never store material for too long. In fact, do not overlook the fact that materials will tend to
degrade and be recontaminated in a finite time, even when the above instructions are
followed.
NOTE
C
ONSULT THE SPECIFICATIONS PROVIDED BY THE MANUFACTURER OF THE
PACKAGING MATERIAL RELATIVE TO THE MAXIMUM ALLOWED STORAGE TIME
. IN THE ABSENCE OF
APPROPRIATE INSTRUCTIONS
, DO NOT EXCEED THE FOLLOWING STORAGE PERIODS:
BASKET WITH SEALING RING OR CONTAINER WITHOUT GASKET
1-2 DAYS
CONTAINER WITH FILTER AND GASKET OR CONTAINER WITH VALVES.
30 DAYS
SINGLE-PLY “MEDICAL GRADE” PAPER
1-2
DAYS
DOUBLE-PLY “MEDICAL GRADE” PAPER (ORTHOGONAL)
30
DAYS
POLYESTER / POLYPROPYLENE PAPER COVERING, SINGLE
30
DAYS
POLYESTER / POLYPROYLENE PAPER COVERING, DOUBLE
60
DAYS
THE VALUES INDICATED REFER TO MATERIAL THAT HAS BEEN PROPERLY STORED.