Research Project: Influence of Device Design and Infection Control

The goals of this project are to conduct studies to determine how device design can influence cleaning of reusable medical devices by developing clinically relevant test soils to validate cleaning, quantifying the amount of residual test soil in “cleaned devices”, and study how given device design influences amount of residual test soil in “cleaned devices.

When testing the ability to effectively clean a reusable medical device, test soil did not accumulate in areas that were accessible to brushing, but did accumulate in corners adjacent to dead ends (left) and in the corners adjacent to steps (right).