Box Locks

[Carol46]

:rolleyes: We Are Having Our Usual Debate Over Our Box Locks. Some Of The Techs In My Department Sterilze Peel Packs Full Of The Orange Box Locks So The Chemical Indicator Will Change Color. They Do This So That When A Box Lock Comes Off A Container That Is Coming Out Of The Sterilizer They Can Replace It With One Of The Locks They Sterilized. I Told Them This Is Not A Safe Practice Since Sterility Can't Be Guaranteed. They Disagree With Me. Any Feed Back On This Would Be Appreciated.

[Uprooted Scrub]

Carol:

I'd be inclined to agree with you. Since they're sterilizing the external chemical indicators on a processing run different than the one the set is being run on, they are not a true reflection of what happened in the sterilizer chamber during that load and should not be used.

Hope this helps!

[johnfmartin]

that is a dangerous practice. How can you be guaranteed that a tray with no sterilization have the box loks replaced with those. Sterility of course is not a absolute guarantee. However, sterility assurance is never based upon a single parameter. That is why we have data from your sterilizers, integrators in the tray, and use of class 5 integrators to release the load.