As of press time in August, the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) was poised to release a major update of its steam sterilization standard, ST79, to incorporate new information on risk analysis and chemical indicators, among other topics. The AAMI Standards Board and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) has approved 26 changes and additions to ANSI/AAMI ST79, known as the “Comprehensive Guide to Steam Sterilization and Sterility Assurance in Health Care Facilities.”
The amendment is part of a continuous maintenance process for ST79, according to independent clinical consultant Cynthia Spry, RN, MSN, CNOR, who is co-chair of the AAMI Steam Sterilization Hospital Practices Working Group. In 2006, AAMI assembled five pertinent documents into one volume, to make it easier for users to access the information.
“Information comes out so quickly today because of the Internet and with the awareness of infection prevention being such a hot topic, AAMI wanted to get updates out to users more quickly,” Spry explains. “So we said we’d do continuous maintenance to the standards, and get information out to people so they have an opportunity to stay on top of things.”
The revised document contains several significant additions, including a focus on risk analysis. “It essentially says you must look at your facility’s processes, proactively determine what the risks are for some kind of failure, and take the necessary steps to prevent that risk of failure,” Spry says. “And if a failure happens, you must know what to do about it. I think it’s important to have a risk management component in everything you do today.”
