Who we are
The main focus of my podiatry practice, which will opened in June 2012, is medical foot care with individual practices and complex podological treatments. Already at the time of its foundation I attached great importance to bright practice rooms and a pleasant practice atmosphere. The modern equipment of the practice should provide the necessary quality of treatment. Due to increased hygiene requirements, I also wanted to update my treatment room before the merger to form a joint practice in May 2015.
MELAG MELAtherm washer-disinfector
Automatic cleaning and disinfection with MELAtherm 10 provides the starting point for the optimization of the decontamination process. I used to clean and disinfect all instruments extensively with an ultrasonic bath and a disinfection tub. However, this does not represent a validatable procedure. The manual reprocessing was very time-consuming and caused a high risk of injury. I decided to purchase the MELAtherm, also because the device could be integrated into the spatially limited reprocessing room without any problems due to its compact design. Since the process agents are accommodated directly in the device, we have more work space available due to the omission of the disinfectant and the disinfection tub.
MELAtherm has a washing chamber that is adapted to our requirements. At the same time, the diverse range of accessories ensures efficient and individual equipment. Depending on the instrument type, baskets for standing, lying and hanging instruments can be considered. The integrated drying and process documentation complete our expectations of a washer-disinfector. The active drying prevents stains or deposits from forming on the instruments. The process documentation via CF card or network interface is a well-known procedure of our sterilizer Vacuklav 30 B+. Additionally, I was surprised by the easy handling. The automatic monitoring of all functions with the output of the corresponding instructions makes the operation of MELAtherm very pleasant. The purchase of the washer-disinfector has a positive influence on our entire instrument decontamination process.
Semi-critical instruments are released directly after decontamination in the wahser-disinfector and are then available for use on our patients. If we work in a critical application area, the instruments are additionally sterilized wrapped in heat-sealed sterilization package. The sealing device MELAseal 100+ and the Vacuklav 30 B+ from MELAG also reliably available to us for these tasks. With the implementation of the system concept from MELAG, all individual process steps are now well-coordinated and standardised.
In conclusion, I can say that the decision to expand our instrument reprocessing cycle with automatic cleaning and disinfection has a noticeable influence on our workflows. After all, not only in the field of podiatry are hygiene requirements increasing, but also the demands for efficient and economical processes. Therefore, the investment in our decontamination room was a sustainable decision that affects not only us but also our patients. The responsibility to use only flawless instruments on our patients is ensured by our new reprocessing process featured by MELAG.
