These days there are a lot of worries about health and things like sterilization in hospitals. We’ve all heard about the cases where someone died simply because the doctor neglected to sterilize or check to make sure their assistants sterilized the equipment properly. These stories make people leery of going to the hospital, especially when it comes to something as simple as treating flu symptoms. With the swine flu sweeping the nation, people became that much more paranoid about these things. If an epidemic does one thing positive, it’s educate people, businesses, and changes hospital policy. It can make people more aware of their environment and things they take for granted. In many hospitals these days, disposable surgical instruments are becoming standard practice. Many things that used to be sterilized and reused are being replaced with a disposable version for safety. This helps avoid accidents while bringing peace of mind to the patient who watches his doctor open the brand new packaging of his instruments.?

What are disposable surgical instruments? This is exactly what it sounds like. The thing is with so much bacteria swarming around, and the potential for accidents, and the general perception necessary in a hospital, it’s no wonder this is becoming more and more the way to go. The benefit is cost, safety, and peace of mind (using an instrument on them that has never been used on anyone else makes patience feel safe).?

In many cases disposable surgical instruments are cost effective, usually in private practice and small doctor’s offices. In larger hospitals or emergency rooms where frequency is a factor, the cost can actually become higher than using non disposable units; however it goes back to perception of the patient and a more sterile environment. In larger hospitals it is paramount that instruments are sterile, and with disposable instruments the chances of something going wrong, i.e. an instrument becoming infected, or non- sterilized, is much lower. It is a sort of balancing act that proves to save money in the end in larger and smaller hospitals, just in different ways. If a patients wound becomes infected, and it is traced back to the instruments being ‘dirty’ this could mean a crippling lawsuit. When weighed against a slightly higher operational cost vs. a multi-million dollar lawsuit, it’s easy to see that the risk of higher costs is, in the end a better gamble.

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