Sanovas Subsidiary Launched To Fight Hospital-Acquired Infections
Sanovas has announced the launch of SteriView, a wholly-owned subsidiary specializing in technology that fights hospital-acquired infections (HAIs). The SteriView instrument inspection and infection control system is touted as a “front-line” solution for device reprocessing that allows technicians to directly view hard-to-reach places on reprocessed medical devices.
HAIs account for 722,000 hospital acute care cases and 75,000 deaths annually, according to a recent report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The report estimates that better prevention protocol enforcement could reduce HAIs by more than 70 percent and save the healthcare system between $25 and $31 billion each year.
The SteriView system’s inspection scopes are small diameter and were designed to image the interior chambers of surgical devices and endoscopes, as required by recent standards outlined by the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) and American National Standards Institutes. According to the product website, SteriView is the only system that allows direct visualization and confirmation that the device has been completely disinfected. The system also records and documents results to assist healthcare providers with risk management.
“Healthcare personnel are constantly facing challenges with the new, sophisticated devices being developed for patient care,” said Nancy Chobin, co-chair of the AAMI Endoscope Reprocessing Working Group. According to AAMI, the urgent need for a more thorough reprocessing solution has grown with the expansion of minimally invasive surgical solutions which integrate devices with increased complexity and versatility.
Mike Humason, VP of clinical affairs and education at Sanovas, called the SteriView system a “leap forward.”
“Direct field experience, plus the weight of formally conducted studies, point to an undiscovered territory of deficiencies inside medical and surgical instrumentation, not adequately addressed by current reprocessing methods and their control procedures,” said Humason in a press release.
Recent policy and provisions enacted by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and large healthcare systems are embarking on “pay-for-performance” contracts, said Lise Moloney, director of business development at Sciessent, in an MDO guest column. Added pressure has fallen on industry to shoulder some responsibility for HAI prevention and has greatly influenced anti-microbial-related trends.
Larry Gerrans, CEO of Sanovas, commented that SteriView system “represents the next inventive step in the infection control process and comprises a most critical asset in the fight against” HAIs.
Sanovas, a medical technology accelerator, recently launched another subsidiary, Intubation Science. Intubation Science’s LightSpeed Intubation system aims to make endotracheal intubation safer for patients and easier for clinicians to perform by adding a visualization system and integrating a more flexible design.