New thermal disinfection endoscopy unit for Blackrock Clinic

12 October 2010

A new thermal disinfection system is installed by Whitewater, in the endoscopy suite at the new hospital extension at the prestigious Blackrock Clinic in Dublin.
The hospital specified a duplex or complete double thermal disinfection system of water purification and ringmain pipework system, which provides 100% duty/standby arrangement. This gives the added security of a complete second system for both RO plant and ring main with consistently available high purity water. The system is now fully commissioned and it is expected that the endoscopy suite will be operational very shortly.
Ensuring standards of disinfection for endoscopes to guarantee patient safety, has become a key issue for clinical teams in hospital endoscopy units.

The quality of a pure water supply to automated endoscope reprocessors (AER's) which wash, disinfect and provide final rinse water for the scopes before they are sterile packed, is critical to these safety levels and subject to the strictest of water standards.
Compliance with endotoxin, microbiology and TVC levels create standards which must be guaranteed every time a scope is used.
Special water purifying units using filtration, reverse osmosis, ultraviolet technology and ultrafiltration supply purified water to the AER's maintaining a very high quality of water purity.

These systems have always relied upon cold water chemical dosing for routine disinfection alongside the additional RO and UV technology to maintain guaranteed chemical and microbiological levels.
More recently, automatic thermal disinfection of the purified water supply is proving to be a more guaranteed and acceptable method of providing the critical levels of water required. These new systems use a daily hot disinfection to 85ºC for microbial maintenance of the loop system whilst the AER is not in use.
Stephen Carr, Authorising Engineer (Decontamination) advises many of the hospitals in Ireland regarding their sterilisation and disinfection systems. He spoke about the newer thermal disinfection systems for water supply to endoscopy reprocessing. "The advantages of the thermal disinfection system over the cold feed system are becoming very clear and it is rapidly becoming the adopted standard of best practice by many hospital endoscopy units.
Thermal disinfection is the best way to kill micro-organisms and reduces the need for the use of chemicals in the system which is good for the environment and reduces costs, but also more importantly stops micro-organisms becoming resistant to the chemicals used."

"Thermal disinfection of the water supply is relatively new to endoscopy although it has been in use for a while in other medical applications where purified water is required, such as in Sterile Service Departments.
Now that the benefits of helping to maintain critical standards of decontamination for hospital equipment, such as the very expensive endoscopes, are becoming clear there is really no question that it is becoming the industry standard," he added.

Tim Quinn, director of Whitewater, one of the leading suppliers of water purification systems for medical applications including endoscopy, talked about hot disinfection.

"We have seen the benefits to our hospital clients of thermal disinfection systems for the past few years in several of our purified water systems and we now only recommend the fully automated hot disinfection technology for AER water supply. Together with the use of the high-tech 'clean Pex' ring main pipework and fittings, which reduce risk of biofilm build up and the daily 85ºC system disinfection, these systems now guarantee very high levels of purified water to the AER's."

"We have been the first water purification company to introduce thermal disinfection systems endoscopy water loops, and we have already supplied more than 20 of these new hot disinfection systems to hospitals across Ireland in the past 3 years. Now when some of our other hospital clients are upgrading their water purification systems for endoscopy suites, this is their system of choice."

Another recent thermal disinfection system for endoscopy is being installed and commissioned by Whitewater at the Cork University Hospital in the new Cardiac, Renal and Oncology building, in conjunction with systems for Haemodialysis and CSSD water.