ScanCARE Blog

Blog posts and downloads related to product families blogs are by far the most accessed content on our website. By a long way.

And it’s with good reason. The concept of product families can be extremely complicated and confusing.

Just yesterday, I received an email informing me that the AS 4187 compliance deadline of December this year had been extended.

The news surprised me. Our subscription to SAI Global Standards watch would normally have alerted us if there had been an amendment in the standard. So I searched high and low on the SAI Global site and then Standards Australia and then the old trusty Google.

However I was unable to find anything. So I mentioned it to our Office Manager who then went off and tried her luck with Google.

The new version of AS/NZS 4187 released on the 15^th December last year brought some very significant changes to the previous standard. One of the most significant ones being the standards reference to Product Families.

With the deadline for implementation of AS4187 2014 coming up fast, I thought that it may be worthwhile to take another look at product families.

There seems to be a lot of interest in AS4187 and product families and my blog of August 2015 is by far our most read page on our website. The helpful categorisation guide gets downloaded several times each week.

Re-usable Medical Devices must, in accordance with AS4187 2014, be labelled prior to sterilisation. The label must identify the contents and provide information for batch control. 

But while the standard's requirements are critical, there are also a number of other requirements such as OH&S that may affect the way you label your RMD’s.

The price of a surgical instrument tracking system is an important consideration if you are considering moving to an automated solution. In order to put together a business case, you will, besides the cost, also need to know the difference between the various offerings and what you can expect to be included in each system.

Complying with Australian standards AS4187 or AS4815 can be a difficult task for any health care facility, but for office based health care facilities, physical space limitations can make it even more difficult. Finding space to wash, wrap and sterilize surgical instruments can be tricky for the smaller facilities and bench space is typically limited so finding space to put things can be a challenge.

The latest version of AS/NZS 4187 released on the 15^th December 2014  brought some very significant changes to the previous standard. One of the most significant changes is the standards reference to Product Families.

In my blog "Here's how to make sense of the AS4187 categorisation of instrument product families", I provided an overview of ISO/TS 17665-3:2013 - Sterilization of health care products - Moist heat - Part 3: Guidance on the designation of a medical device to a product family and processing category for steam sterilization.

In today's post I will get into the specifics of how to apply the standard to a dental assessment tray.

Surgical Instrument Product Families for Ophthalmologists

The new version of AS/NZS 4187 released on the 15^th December last year brought some very significant changes to the previous standard. One of the most significant changes is the standards reference to Product Families.

In a previous blog, I provided an overview of ISO/TS 17665-3:2013 - Sterilization of health care products - Moist heat - Part 3: Guidance on the designation of a medical device to a product family and processing category for steam sterilization.

Today I will get into the specifics of how to apply the standard to a Cataract Tray. Let's take a look at how to do that.

If you’re a member of the Dental Health community you’re probably aware that a lot has happened in the last 12 months. I am referring to infection control breaches that have happened
in New South Wales. Around the same time two documents were released that have the express purpose of preventing such issues.

 

They are:

• AS4187 2014
• The Australian Dental Association Guidelines for Infection Control Third Edition 2015.

Infection Control has become a hot topic and the Australian Dental Board's release of an open letter  dated 16^th July 2015 reminding Dental Practitioners of their Infection control obligations under the National Law is testament to that.

With this blog, I will try to provide some guidance through the maze of standards and guidelines and provide dental practitioners with a list of relevant documentation for further reading.