State inspectors have revealed that a week of non-emergency operations at the University of Colorado Hospital UCHealth was halted after dozens of contaminated surgical instruments stained with dried blood and tissue were found around the facility.
In July, inspectors revealed a huge amount of uncleaned tools, so the hospital has been closed since July 16. until July 25 suspended all non-emergency operations while the security breaches were addressed.
An inspection, launched after receiving a formal complaint, found 17 stainless steel trolleys containing between 11 and 30 trays of dirty surgical instruments in the hospital’s Sterile Processing Department (SPD).
Additional trolleys were found in a storage room near the operating rooms and in the corridor, and hundreds of trays were left “open to the air and heavily soiled with dried blood and tissue”, inspectors wrote. Colorado sun.
The state regulator classified the situation as “immediate danger” with findings indicating imminent harm to patients if corrective measures are not implemented quickly.
The University of Colorado UCHealth University Hospital suspended non-emergency operations for a week in July after inspectors found numerous contaminated instruments and a severe lack of sterilization (Getty Images)
According to UCHealth spokeswoman Kelli Christensen The sun that the hospital’s BPD was operating at reduced capacity, so scheduled operations were postponed or relocated.
The hospital worked closely with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment to address the violations, the spokesperson added.
“We have declared a deficiency at the level of immediate danger, which required the facility to develop an immediate and long-term plan to correct any violations,” CDPHE spokeswoman Alexandrea Kallin said. The sun this week.
The backlog was due to the opening of new operating rooms, which significantly increased the workload of the BPD.
Before the expansion, the hospital needs an estimated 65.2 full-time positions. After the expansion, the need increased to 85.2 full-time positions. Inspectors found no evidence of increased staffing to meet this demand.
Sometimes instruments were left unsterilized for more than 24 hours, but technicians told investigators that delays could last up to six days.
Between April and July, inspectors documented dozens of days in which more than 100 sets of contaminated instruments went untreated, including one day when 500 sets remained untreated.
BPD staff were instructed to spray uncleaned instruments with a pre-cleaning solution every 72 hours, which inspectors said violated manufacturer’s instructions.
The hospital can use up to 1,000 trays a day and thousands of individual surgical instruments, Christensen said.The sun.
This is a problem because dried blood and tissue increase the risk of biofilm, hardened deposits of bacteria that are difficult to remove. This can lead to “less effective disinfection and sterilization,” one inspector wrote.
SPD’s director reported staffing shortages last year, and backlogs are reported to management on a daily basis.
Christensen confirmed The sun This week, the hospital faced challenges filling vacant SPD positions, leading to a temporary shortage.
During the July shutdown, UCHealth increased the number of SPD employees to 140 full-time equivalents, exceeding national benchmarks, and increased salaries for those positions, Christensen said.
No patient at UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital has been harmed by non-sterilization (UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital)
The hospital has also tightened staffing and delays in instrument cleaning. By September, state inspectors had confirmed that the hospital was in compliance with all the rules they investigated and had not issued any further sanctions.
Inspection reports did not identify any cases of patient harm directly related to sterilization failures. UCHealth said it found no infections related to the backlog, although at least one operation was delayed while staff cleaned or replaced specialized instruments.
Christensen described the incident as a temporary staffing crisis resolved in close cooperation with CDPHE.
She said the hospital’s commitment to making the necessary changes shows that patients can trust the hospital to provide safe and reliable care.
“Their findings confirmed that our processes are safe, effective and meet the highest standards of patient care,” Christensen wrote. The sun. “All patients whose procedures were delayed have been rescheduled and most of those operations have now been completed.”
The Independent. UCHealth and CDPHE have been contacted for further comment.