Uncovering the Hidden Dangers: A Comprehensive Study on Insulated Medical Devices From 2021 to 2022

Cheron Rojo, BS, FCS, CHL, CIS, CER, CFER, CRCST, Senior Clinical Education Specialist for Healthmark Industries, delves into the realm of insulated medical devices, a topic often overshadowed by the spotlight on laparoscopic tools. These seemingly innocuous instruments have been linked to patient burns and staff-related fires, creating a significant but often unspoken issue. By discussing his study with Infection Control Today, he wants to bring awareness to this rarely-covered issue.

“This presentation is about my 2021 to 2022. It's a [year-long] study that was more robust, and my first study was in 2019, which stemmed from my daughter getting ill and ending up having a lot of Abby in 2020. the 2019 study was around 8 months because of COVID-19. I knew later I wanted to do something more robust, which is what this presentation is about. So that's kind of it in a nutshell; it's just a bigger study. The study itself is more about insulated devices. It's not about just laparoscopic that a lot of individuals focus on. It's about insulated bipolar, forceps, cables, and cords that are insulated, all these items that have been linked to burns to patients internally or externally. The staff had fires and burnings, from the surgeons to even the scrub techs. So, to me, it's a very, very big issue. And the study does it justice, meaning it makes people aware that the problem still exists. It's just a lot of individuals or facilities don't talk about it because they settle outside of court.”

Rojo hopes his audience will learn from his presentation. “I don't want to scare them. But at the same time, I want to scare them. The message I want them to take is being able to go back to their country and start their facility because a lot of these individuals were from one facility or their health care system in performing the auditing tool that I'm ending with. I'm not just going in and showing them numbers. I'm not just going to scare them with pictures, obviously a lot of pictures. But I'm giving them a list to be able to go back and say, look, do you have this? Do you have this? And if you have this, is your staff using it correctly? Do they even know how to identify this specific damage? I show them different damages and tell them what it is, where it's located, and why it's possibly happening. So, it's an auditing tool that I want to leave them with.”

(Quotations have been edited for clarity. Watch the video above for the full interview)