The ad­e­quate re­pro­cess­ing of reusable med­i­cal in­stru­ments by ex­ter­nal ser­vice en­ter­pris­es bears a huge po­ten­tial on the mar­ket. The qual­i­ty of re­pro­cess­ing has to meet strin­gent reg­u­la­tions that aim to pre­vent the trans­mis­sion of in­fec­tious agents and to en­sure safe­ty for pa­tients and staff.

Min­i­mal­ly in­va­sive in­stru­ments, such as e.g. flex­i­ble en­do­scopes are ex­cep­tion­al­ly so­phis­ti­cat­ed to re­pro­cess. Fur­ther more the high op­er­at­ing costs for the re­pro­cess­ing of med­i­cal de­vices are hard­ly af­ford­able for hos­pi­tals and even less for med­i­cal prac­tis­es. The out­sourc­ing of the in­stru­ment re­pro­cess­ing al­lows med­i­cal fa­cil­i­ties to con­cen­trate on their core com­pe­ten­cies.

The pro­ject en­dorsed the com­mis­sion­ing of ex­ter­nal ser­vice providers for the re­pro­cess­ing of med­i­cal de­vices. A big mar­ket in this sec­tor is open for small and medi­um sized en­ter­pris­es. The out­sourc­ing of re­pro­cess­ing ser­vices can re­sult in an im­prove­ment of hy­giene and qual­i­ty as well as in a re­duc­tion of ex­pens­es for the med­i­cal fa­cil­i­ties.

The pro­ject sup­port­ed the foun­da­tion of new en­ter­pris­es and the ex­pan­sion of ex­ist­ing com­pa­nies in this sec­tor by the trans­fer of knowl­edge.

To im­prove ed­u­ca­tion and for pro­vi­sion of de­tailed tech­ni­cal in­for­ma­tion an in­ter­net plat­form that in­cludes a database was es­tab­lished (www.hygiene-for-health.de). Rel­e­vant in­for­ma­tion on dif­fer­ent as­pects, i.e. laws to con­sid­er, har­mo­nized stan­dards, di­rec­tives and guide­lines as well as data about re­pro­cess­ing pro­ce­dures, us­able ma­chin­ery and chem­i­cals were com­piled.

In par­al­lel the pro­ject con­duct­ed re­search in dif­fer­ent fields to sup­port the sci­en­tif­ic knowl­edge of com­pa­nies doing in re­pro­cess­ing ser­vices. For ex­am­ple stud­ies at­tend­ed new re­pro­cess­ing pro­ce­dures. Other stud­ies in­ves­ti­gat­ed the dif­fer­ent na­tion­al test pro­ce­dures that are used for the per­for­mance test­ing of wash­er/dis­in­fec­tors. In co­op­er­a­tion with the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ap­plied Sci­ences Nieder­rhein a pro­cess chal­leng­ing de­vice for hol­low in­stru­ments was en­gi­neered and anal­ysed using com­pu­ta­tion fluid dy­nam­ics that can be used by the com­pa­nies to im­prove clean­ing pro­ce­dures. These re­search ac­tiv­i­ties helped com­pa­nies to en­sure high­est level qual­i­ty.

We thank the Ar­beits­ge­mein­schaft in­dus­trieller Forschungvere­ini­gun­gen e.V. (AiF) (As­so­ci­a­tion of In­dus­tri­al Re­search Or­gan­i­sa­tions) for fund­ing the pro­ject IN­TER­REG II­IA-Pro­jekt 2-rmn-II-2=39 through a fi­nan­cial sup­port by the Fed­er­al Min­istry of Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs.

The re­search re­port is avail­able on re­quest from FRT.