September 17, Patient Safety Day. The secret is in hygiene

On Sunday, September 17, Patient Safety Day is celebrated, which the World Health Organization articulates this year around the motto “Involving patients in patient safety”.

Fraternidad-Muprespa aligns itself with this important initiative and celebrates this day by putting the emphasis on how patient safety is monitored at the Mutua, for which we recover the podcast starring Elena Muñoz Bodega, operating room supervisor at the Fraternidad-Muprespa Havana Hospital and responsible for one of the fundamental aspects in the chapter of patient safety: correct hygiene of the healthcare material with which people come into contact.

In Fraternidad-Muprespa this responsibility corresponds to the sterilization area of the Fraternidad-Muprespa Havana Hospital. Even though it is a non-care service, since it is not in direct contact with the patient, everything that is done is aimed at ensuring their safety thanks to the processes of washing, disinfection and sterilization of the instruments and also their storage, distribution and handling, also exercising at the same time effective quality control in all steps of the process.

But what are the differences between sterilization, disinfection and cleaning? As Elena Muñoz Bodega explained, "cleaning eliminates dirt and part of the microorganisms, disinfection destroys or inactivates many germs and sterilization completely destroys them all. All materials are subjected to the three processes and all three are equally important." 

Another vital aspect that this department is responsible for is traceability, that is, achieving comprehensive control of the product throughout all phases of the sterilization process. It can be done in a direct or reverse direction, that is, from the sterilization service to the patient and from the patient to sterilization. 

Traceability allows us to know the 'life' of a specific instrument: how we have washed it, what day, in what type of sterilizer, on which patient or patients it has been used... and to know the results of the indicators used to know that the processes are carried out correctly.

For the safety of the patient, this information goes to their electronic medical record, so that just as their medical history, their current diagnosis or the medical tests that must be performed appear, information on what material they have been in contact with also appears.