Did You Know? Decontaminating and sterilizing medical devices
Medical Device Reprocessing has a critical role in patient care
With teams located at University Hospital and at Victoria Hospital, Medical Device Reprocessing (MDR) is responsible for the decontamination, sterilization and organization of thousands of medical devices used for aseptic, or sterile, procedures for more than one million patient visits each year.
Each day more than 60 highly skilled MDR attendants reprocess over 25,000 medical devices for nearly 100 surgeries. They also reprocess over 150 medical imaging devices and provide services to more than 30 different outpatient clinics every day.
Medical devices include all items used in health care for diagnosis, prevention, monitoring and treatment of patients - from syringes and prostheses, to electrodes, implants and surgical instruments.
MDR is constantly updating as innovative instruments and instructions for reprocessing are developed. The technicians review the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) standards to ensure they have processes in place to support best practices, and consistently look for process improvements to better serve the operating rooms and clinics.
The MDR team works behind the scenes while providing clinical partners with all the necessary instruments to seamlessly deliver patient care. The team operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
Did you know?
- University Hospital MDR has approximately 1,259 different types of instrument trays comprised of 28,442 different instruments with a total of 2,884 trays available for use between the operating rooms, wards and clinics.
- Victoria Hospital MDR has approximately 1,250 different types of instrument trays comprised of 29,848 different instruments with a total of 3,818 trays available for use between the operating rooms, wards and clinics.
- In the past 12 months, the total number of trays processed at LHSC was 187,612. Of these, 1,281 were trays that required priority turn-around. The shortest possible time for MDR to turn around a priority tray is four hours.