Steam sterilizers are used to sterilize heat resistive surgical instruments and textiles that are used in the operation theatres and other hospital departments to kill any living micro-organism on these materials and prevent any possible infection. In these sterilizers door gaskets are used to seal the doors and prevent any leakage from or to the chamber. In this paper we will explain how a small modification in the design of the sterilizer can extend the lifetime of the door gaskets and thus save a lot of money
Method: The experimenttook place in The Central Sterilization Department in King Hussein Hospital during a period of approximately one year starting from the date 1/June/2016 and ending in 15/May/2017. In this department two sterilizers manufactured by the same manufacturing company were installed at the same year (2010). Both sterilizers are single-door model. A new door gasket is installed for each sterilizer and the cycle counter was reset. A modification of the way of sealing the door is implemented in one sterilizer only; the door is sealed by compressed air instead of steam. A leak test cycle was implemented once in a week for both sterilizers to investigated door gaskets condition, the gaskets were replaced when damaged. After conducting 3000 cycles in each sterilizer we count how many door gaskets we replaced for each sterilizer.
Results: during the 3000 cycles, we replaced the door gasket for the modified sterilizer only once after the new gasket was installed, whereas we changed the gasket for the unmodified sterilizer 4 times during the same period, that means the unmodified sterilizer consumed 3 more door gaskets than the modified sterilizer, each gasket costs 350 Jordanian dinars, that means that the modification saves 1050 Jordanian dinars and that is for only one sterilizer during approximately one year.
Conclusion: The modification of the way of sealing the door gasket extends its lifetime three times and saves a lot of money without affecting the quality of sterilization; if we modify all sterilizers in all Central Sterilization Departments in Royal Medical Services Hospitals we can save a considerable amount of money.