ScanCARE Blog

The shift from AS/NZS 4187:2014 to AS 5369:2023 introduces notable changes in the implementation of Product Families, especially with the detailed guidance presented in section A.5.2 of Appendix A.

In contrast to AS/NZS 4187:2014, AS 5369:2023 offers comprehensive guidance along with a supporting flowchart.

This blog aims to explore the guidance provided and highlight the differences in managing product family classifications between these two standards, making it easier to understand the adjustments required.

ScanCARE QuickShots offer a condensed version of our in-depth blog posts, summarising the key takeaways and presenting them in a quick, easy-to-read format. Each QuickShots blog will cover essential information on surgical instrument tracking, sterilization, and management, helping you stay up to date on industry best practices and innovations.

Body art and personal appearances services are a fast growing industry and we are experiencing increased downloads of our eBook on surgical instrument tracking by owners and managers of body piercing clinics and body art studios. So I want to bring these types of businesses and services into the discussion on infection control and sterilizing standards. Particularly the use of re-usable devices used for skin penetration.

AS2828.1 is a standard that specifies the requirements for the physical aspects of health records. It covers size, quality, layout, and colour. The objective of the standard is to improve the quality of health care by facilitating communication between healthcare professionals. Standardisation of medical record across health care facilities can help achieve this.

Medical Forms and AS28281.1

A whole new world of benefits will open up to you when you move from a paper based medical records system to digital.

For example you can create custom lists of things like medications or health funds and link them to text pickers and select lists. This way, instead of having to use the keyboard, users users can select an item from a (dropdown) list. So accuracy is greatly improved because the risk of typing errors is minimised.

You also have the option of adding check boxes to select “yes/no” type checks and transfer data automatically from one text field to another, so you only have to type it once!

These are just a few example but digital medical records offer you so many options.  So let’s take a look at an example medical record and apply some digital magic to it.

AS2828.1 specifies the requirements for the physical aspects of health records' size, quality, layout, colour, order of filing and record cover.

Although it appears to apply exclusively to paper based health records, AS2828.1 needs to be taken into account for health records that have been digitised from paper as well as Electronic health records.

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.

If you are considering a digital patient records system, it may well be worth looking to see that the system is AS2828 compliant.

Why, you ask? After all AS2828 is about paper medical records right?

Well...not exactly.

On the 15^th December last year, a new version of AS/NZS 4187 was released. The standard is complex and there is so much to understand. There are many requirements. So what can you do to ensure your ophthalmic centre is compliant?