CHL Infection Prevention and Control — Questions and Answers
Question 1: What is the primary purpose of a sterile processing department's infection prevention program?
- To comply with Joint Commission accreditation standards
- To reduce healthcare-associated infections by ensuring properly decontaminated and sterilized instruments (Correct answer)
- To lower supply costs through better inventory management
- To document staff training completion rates
Correct answer: To reduce healthcare-associated infections by ensuring properly decontaminated and sterilized instruments
The core mission of infection prevention in SPD is reducing HAIs through proper instrument processing. While compliance and documentation are important, they are secondary to the primary goal of patient safety through effective infection prevention.
Question 2: Which of the following best describes the principle of 'Standard Precautions'?
- Applying infection control measures only to patients with known bloodborne infections
- Using full PPE only during surgical instrument processing
- Treating all blood, body fluids, and potentially infectious materials as if they are infectious (Correct answer)
- Treating only visibly contaminated items as potentially infectious
Correct answer: Treating all blood, body fluids, and potentially infectious materials as if they are infectious
Standard Precautions treat all human blood, body fluids, and other potentially infectious materials as if they were known to be infectious, regardless of a patient's diagnosis. This approach protects both patients and healthcare workers universally.
Question 3: Which organization publishes the primary technical standards for sterilization and disinfection used by healthcare sterile processing departments?
- The Joint Commission (TJC)
- The Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) (Correct answer)
- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
- The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)
Correct answer: The Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI)
AAMI publishes the primary technical standards for sterile processing, including ANSI/AAMI ST79 for steam sterilization. While TJC, CDC, and OSHA all play roles in infection control, AAMI is the primary standards body specifically for SPD processes and instrumentation.
Question 4: What is the correct order of instrument processing steps in a sterile processing department?
- Decontamination → Sterilization → Inspection/Assembly → Distribution
- Inspection/Assembly → Decontamination → Sterilization → Distribution
- Decontamination → Inspection/Assembly → Packaging → Sterilization (Correct answer)
- Packaging → Decontamination → Sterilization → Inspection
Correct answer: Decontamination → Inspection/Assembly → Packaging → Sterilization
The correct workflow is: Decontamination (cleaning/disinfection) → Inspection and Assembly → Packaging → Sterilization → Storage/Distribution. Instruments must be clean before proper inspection, and must be packaged before sterilization to maintain sterility after the process.
Question 5: A sterile processing leader notices an increase in surgical site infections (SSIs) linked to the department. What should be the FIRST step in addressing this?
- Immediately retrain all staff on sterilization techniques
- Conduct a root cause analysis to identify the specific breakdown in the reprocessing workflow (Correct answer)
- Purchase new sterilization equipment
- Report the infections to the state health department
Correct answer: Conduct a root cause analysis to identify the specific breakdown in the reprocessing workflow
A root cause analysis is the appropriate first step to systematically identify what failed before implementing solutions. Retraining, equipment replacement, or reporting may all be appropriate later steps, but they should be based on evidence uncovered by the root cause analysis.
Question 6: A sterile processing manager discovers that a washer-disinfector has been malfunctioning and instruments may not have been properly decontaminated before sterilization. What is the MOST appropriate immediate response?
- Continue normal operations and monitor for future infection reports
- Document the malfunction but wait until the end of the shift to act
- Re-sterilize all affected instruments without notifying other departments
- Quarantine potentially affected instrument sets and immediately notify infection prevention, surgeons, and risk management (Correct answer)
Correct answer: Quarantine potentially affected instrument sets and immediately notify infection prevention, surgeons, and risk management
A potential sterilization breach requires immediate action on two fronts: quarantining affected items to prevent further distribution, and notifying infection prevention, clinical staff, and risk management so that proper patient follow-up can be arranged. Simply re-sterilizing without notification fails to address patient safety for items already distributed.
CHL Infection Prevention and Control
What is the primary purpose of a sterile processing department's infection prevention program?