Loaner Instrumentation: Processing the Unknown

ABSTRACT
- THE USE OF LOANER INSTRUMENTATION is a growing phenomenon in today's expanding health care environment.
- CENTRAL PROCESSING DEPARTMENT personnel at Walter Reed Medical Center, Washington, DC, undertook a project to determine if loaner instrumentation coming into the facility had been decontaminated.
- SIXTEEN PERCENT of the loaner instruments tested were positive for blood residue.
- THE RESULTS OF THIS PROJECT were used to strengthen internal standard operating procedures and to alert the hospital's infection control committee of a potential safety problem. AORN J 85 (March 2007) 566-573. © AORN, Inc, 2007.