Compared with traditional cotton packaging, medical non-woven packaging has ideal sterilization and antibacterial effects, reduces packaging costs, reduces manpower and material resources to varying degrees, saves medical resources, reduces the risk of hospital infections, and plays a certain role in controlling the occurrence of hospital infections. It can replace all cotton packaging for reusable medical equipment packaging and is worth promoting and applying.
Use both medical non-woven fabric and full cotton fabric for packaging sterilized items. To determine the shelf life of sterilized medical non-woven packaging in the current hospital environment, understand the differences in performance between it and cotton packaging, and make cost and performance comparisons.
Materials and Methods
1.1 Materials
A double-layer cotton bag made of 140 count cotton yarn; Double layer 60g/m2, 1 batch of medical equipment, 1 batch of self-contained biological indicators and nutrient agar medium, pulsating vacuum sterilizer.
1.2 Sample
Group A: Double layer 50cm × 50cm medical non-woven fabric, packaged in a conventional way with one large and one small curved disc, 20 medium-sized cotton balls sandwiched in the middle, one 12cm curved hemostatic forceps, one tongue depressor, and one 14cm dressing forceps, totaling 45 packages. Group B: Double layered cotton wrap is used to package the same items using conventional packaging methods, with 45 packages. Each package contains 5 self-contained biological indicators. Place chemical indicator cards inside the bag and wrap them with chemical indicator tape outside the bag. Complies with the requirements of the National Health Technical Specifications for Disinfection.
1.3 Sterilization and Effect Testing
All packages are subjected to pressure steam sterilization simultaneously at a temperature of 132 ℃ and a pressure of 0.21MPa. After sterilization, immediately send 10 packages containing self-contained biological indicators to the microbiology laboratory for biological cultivation, and observe the sterilization effect for 48 hours.
Other packages are stored in sterile cabinets in the sterile supply room. During the 6-12 months of the experiment, the sterile room will conduct sterilization once a month with an air bacterial count of 56-158 cfu/m3, a temperature of 20-25 ℃, a humidity of 35% -70%, and a sterile cabinet surface cell count of ≤ 5 cfu/cm.
1.4 Testing methods
Number packages A and B, and randomly select 5 packages at 7, 14, 30, 60, 90, 120, 150, and 180 days after sterilization. Samples will be taken from the biosafety cabinet in the microbiology laboratory and placed in nutrient agar medium for bacterial culture. Bacterial cultivation is carried out in accordance with the “Disinfection Technical Specifications” of the Ministry of Health of the People’s Republic of China, which specifies the “Method for Testing the Disinfection Effectiveness of Items and Environmental Surfaces”.
Results
2.1 After sterilization, the medical equipment package packaged in cotton cloth and medical non-woven fabric showed negative biological culture, achieving sterilization effect.
2.2 Testing of storage period
The instrument package packaged in cotton cloth has a sterile growth period of 14 days, and there is bacterial growth in the second month, ending the experiment. No bacterial growth was found in the medical non-woven packaging of the instrument package within 6 months.
2.3 Cost Comparison
Double layered one-time use, taking the specification of 50cm × 50cm as an example, the price is 2.3 yuan. The cost of making a 50cm x 50cm double-layer cotton wrap is 15.2 yuan. Taking 30 uses as an example, the cost of washing each time is 2 yuan. Neglecting labor costs and material expenses within the package, only comparing the cost of using the packaging fabric. 3 Discussions.
3.1 Comparison of Antibacterial Effects
The experiment showed that the antibacterial effect of medical non-woven fabric is significantly better than that of this cotton fabric. Due to the porous arrangement of medical non-woven fabrics, high-pressure steam and other media can be bent and infiltrated into the packaging, achieving a penetration rate of 100% and a high barrier effect against bacteria. Bacterial permeation filtration experiments have shown that it can reach up to 98%. The bacterial penetration transition rate of all cotton fabric is 8% to 30%. After repeated cleaning and ironing, its fiber structure deforms, causing sparse pores and even small holes that are not easily noticeable to the naked eye, resulting in the failure of packaging to isolate bacteria.
3.2 Cost Comparison
There is a difference in the cost of single packaging between these two types of packaging materials, and there is a significant difference in the cost of storing sterile packages for a long time. The cost of medical non-woven fabric is significantly lower than that of full cotton fabric. In addition, the table does not list the repeated expiration of sterile cotton packaging, the loss of materials consumed inside the packaging, the energy consumption of water, electricity, gas, detergent, etc. during reprocessing, as well as the labor costs of transportation, cleaning, packaging, and sterilization for laundry and supply room personnel. Medical non-woven fabric does not have the above-mentioned consumption.
3.3 Performance Comparison
After more than a year of use (with humid climates in July, August, and September, and dry climates in October, November, and December, which are representative), we have summarized the performance differences between cotton wrapped fabric and non-woven fabric. Pure cotton wrapped fabric has the advantage of good compliance, but there are defects such as cotton dust pollution and poor biological barrier effect. In the experiment, the growth of bacteria in sterile packaging was related to humid environments, with high storage conditions and short shelf life; However, the humid environment does not affect the biological barrier function of medical non-woven fabric, so medical non-woven fabric has good sterilization effect, convenient use, long storage period, safety and other advantages. Overall, medical non-woven fabric is superior to full cotton fabric.
Compared with traditional cotton packaging, medical non-woven packaging has ideal sterilization and antibacterial effects, reduces packaging costs, and to varying degrees reduces the risk of hospital infections. It plays a certain role in controlling the occurrence of hospital infections and can replace all cotton packaging for the reuse of medical equipment. It is worth promoting and applying.
【 Keywords 】 Medical non-woven fabric, full cotton fabric, sterilization, antibacterial, cost-effectiveness
Post time: Aug-08-2024