Sterilization Guidelines: Third Edition

The Sterilization Guidelines provide a clear guidance to Hospital Projects on how to clean, disinfect and sterilize surgical equipment and supplies. This process is a crucial part of infection and prevention control, to provide high quality care to all patients. Developed for all staff, especially newly recruited, to gain a full understanding of how the sterilization process works. The aim of these guidelines is to provide evidence-based guidance on how to implement and perform the disinfection and sterilization process of medical equipment while working in low resource and challenging settings. Through these guidelines, the staff in charge of sterilization will find relevant information on: · the nature of the organisms that cause infections, how to limit its spread and how it can be destroyed; · design and functioning of sterilization equipment for a safe and effective use · types of sterilization loads, packaging systems and their behaviour when exposed to steam.