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Article: A review of current reprocessing guidelines for flexible endoscopes.(Self-study Series)
- Article from:
- Healthcare Purchasing News
- Article date:
- August 1, 2005
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2005 Healthcare Purchasing News. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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All too frequently national news carries a story of healthcare providers who have inadvertently exposed patients to infectious organisms because they have failed to properly reprocess invasive equipment. These unfortunate incidents are likely much more common than we imagine, frequently going unnoticed or unreported.
Some experts estimate the incidence of infections from inadequately disinfected colonoscopies to be as rare as 1 per 1.8 million procedures. Others say there may be as many as 270,000 infections (2) out of the total of approximately 10 million flexible endoscopies performed each year in the U. S. The truth is, no one knows how frequently infectious ...