Beyond Clean Podcast

How complicated can it really be to drop an instrument into a peel pack, seal it up, and move on? The answer: very complicated and precise if you want to do so in a safe, reproducible manner. On this Season 5 kickoff episode, our Beyond Clean team sat down with Charlie Webb, Founder and President at Van der Stähl Scientific , to discuss the intricacies of medical device packaging and challenge ass...

Why isn't every-load biological indicator monitoring a global practice in Sterile Processing? Do chemical indicators actually pose a greater challenge in certain contexts? Is parametric release the future of sterility assurance or ready for retirement? For our 2nd Annual Beyond Clean LIVE event, we took the show on the road again in front of a live audience in Anaheim, California during the 2019 I...

The topic of Sterile Processing salaries and compensation in the US always garners a lot of interest and buzz. One of the few publications that regularly addresses insights and trends on this topic is Healthcare Purchasing News (HPN). On this Season 1 re-release edition of Beyond Clean, we sat down with Kara Nadeau to discuss the 2018 CS/SPD salary survey she worked on with HPN, as well as her pro...

If you had the opportunity to build a brand new Sterile Processing department, what would you do? How would you prioritize design considerations and what kinds of creative ideas would you employ to function within budget and space constraints? On this re-release from Season 1, we talked to Shawn Flynn and his team about their experience in a new SPD department in Palo Alto, California, and cover a...

What drives you as a Sterile Processing professional? Why do you wake up every morning, drive to a hospital, put on scrubs, and labor in areas of the hospital most people will never see, for patients who hardly know you exist? On this re-release from Season 1, we talked to Nestor Hernandez about finding your voice and discovering your "why" as a Sterile Processing hero. There are no little people...

Sterile Processing, yeah, there's an App for that. On this Top 10 re-release episode from Season 1 of the Beyond Clean podcast, we talked to Adam Okada about the impact of mobile application technology on the Sterile Processing industry, education, and the future of professional networking. How can you leverage industry expertise right from your smart phone? Is there such a thing as an educator in...

'The Joint Commission has arrived.' Five words that can cause even the most confident of Sterile Processing leader and frontline technician a mild anxiety attack. Is all of our documentation up to date? Have we checked every employee off on their ultrasonic competencies? Will they find any technicians using incorrect detergent dilutions? This fear of the unknown and the "what if" can be debilitati...

Have you ever been asked to reprocess an implant device that had been removed from a patient? Chances are high that you have encountered this scenario at least once in your Sterile Processing career, but to date, there has been very little written or discussed on the topic. How can you ensure the device can be safely cleaned and given to a patient without manufacturer instructions or validation fo...

In an industry defined by our standards, recommendations, and guidelines, there are still many misunderstanding related to how these documents can and should impact compliant reprocessing of medical devices in our hospitals. On this week's episode of the Beyond Clean podcast, we talk to Chuck Hughes, the new Executive Advisor at Beyond Clean and retired founder of SPS Medical Supply Corp., about t...

How much do you know about the history of ethylene oxide and the formative role it has played in modern medical device sterilization? For older generations of Sterile Processing professionals, images of large tanks and extended aeration times may come to mind. For younger generations of technicians, EtO technology may be little understood and likely even misunderstood. On this Season 4 rewind of t...

How much protein is left on your surgical instruments after "cleaning"? How much protein is too much? And how would you know? On this week's edition of the Beyond Clean podcast we invite Dr. Thomas Vanzieleghem, Scientific Director & Biofilm expert with OneLIFE SA, to speak with us about protein detection technologies within the Sterile Processing industry. Dr. Vanzieleghem makes the case for the...

How do you know your decontamination equipment (washers and ultrasonic cleaners) are really working as they should? What does "passing" and "failing" a daily quality test actually tell you about your current cleaning process? On this Season 4 rewind of the Beyond Clean podcast, we bring back international decontamination expert Pawel de Sternberg Stojalowski, to discuss the fundamentals of process...

Decontamination of loaner and consignment instrument trays is one of the most complex processes in a Sterile Processing department, and yet many facilities simply treat every vendor tray the same way -- regardless of the manufacturer's specific instructions for use. On this Season 4 rewind of the Beyond Clean podcast, we brought on Bob Marrs, the nationally known clinical educator, consultant, and...

What if there were a tool that allowed your Sterile Processing team to quickly and accurately identify loaner instruments for reassembly? No need to call a vendor, no frustrating case delays because of incomplete trays, and no more replacement costs for missing vendor instruments. As we kick off the brand new Beyond Clean Vendor Spotlight series, we will be talking to Geoffrey Broninx about the in...

What if we told your hospital CEO they could save tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars by INVESTING more resources into your Sterile Processing department? Would you believe there is a $50 billion opportunity in the United States alone to reduce costs AND increase quality related to surgical instrument reprocessing? On this Season 4 rewind of the Beyond Clean podcast, we brin...

How is the power of podcasting and social media impacting the next generation of surgeons? What impact do non-functional surgical instruments have on the surgeon-user? We kick off an epic Season 4 of the Beyond Clean podcast this week with Dr. Jason Bingham from the Behind the Knife podcast, and nerd out on everything from social media to surgery. Grab your stereo and scalpel, and tune in as #WeFi...

Is chemical exposure hurting your Sterile Processing team? How would you know and what could you be doing to guard against it? For this episode of Beyond Clean, we invited David Hilliker to tackle one of the most important topics in our industry -- employee safety and chemical monitoring. If you missed this classic episode the first time, we are now able to re-release this blockbuster Season 1 con...

Do your flexible scope leak tests "make the grade" or are they failing in more ways than one? Back in Season 1 of the Beyond Clean podcast, we invited Sara Freiberg, Clinical Education Manager for Northfield Medical, to dive into the details of compliant scope reprocessing -- covering everything from proper leak testing, to chemical usages, and sink sizing. This week we are able to re-release yet...

How do you excellently service Sterile Processing customers who are located outside of the hospital setting, across the street or even in other cities? Back in Season 1, we invited Don Williams, current Regional Director of Sterile Processing for Kaiser Permanente, to talk to us about the terrific work his team had been doing regarding the centralization of processing for ambulatory surgery center...

There are few acronyms as formative for the Sterile Processing industry in the US than AAMI. But how much do you really know about what AAMI is, how workgroups operate, and how we end up with standards such as ST91:2015 for Flexible And Semi-Rigid Endoscope Processing In Health Care Facilities? Back in Season 1, we got AAMI regular and flexible scope extraordinaire Mary Ann Drosnock to step up to...

What does surgical instrument sterilization look like on the battlefield? In disaster zones? In the middle of an Amazonian rainforest? In the near future it could look very different and much smaller than traditional means and models of modern sterilization techniques. On our last episode of Season 3, we dropped the mic in front of Daniel Taggart of SteriO3 to give us a ton of interesting insights...

How does an innovation in the infection control industry make it from idea to market? What role does collaboration play in opening doors for Sterile Processing professionals to expand their networks both locally and around the world? On this week's edition of the Beyond Clean Podcast, we tracked down Michael Diamond to chat about the tremendous work The Infection Prevention Strategy (TIPS) is doin...

How has technology impacted our potential to know and follow device manufacturer instructions for use in Sterile Processing? How far have we come and what does the future hold for the technology vs. IFUs challenges within our industry? On this week's edition of Beyond Clean, we speak with Andy Petrovich about how technology is being used to drive real world compliance in our departments. Don't mis...

This week on Beyond Clean we speak with Keith Koby, Senior Vice President - North America at Nanosonics. Keith Koby joined Nanosonics in April 2012 bringing with him more than 25 years of sales experience and healthcare insight. Mr. Koby started his career as an engineer with GE Healthcare. After 16 years, Mr. Koby went on to the infection prevention world and joined Medivators to develop their di...

This week on beyond clean we speak with Brandon VanHee, Clinical Education Manager at Key Surgical.  Brandon has over 10 years of experience in leadership positions in the United States Marine Corps and the healthcare industry. This experience led him to work with various medical device companies in product management, new product development, clinical marketing and clinical training roles. Curren...