Sterile processing department at KEMH to be upgraded

Thursday 7 November 2024: Bermuda Hospitals Board today announced that it is starting a major renovation project for its sterile processing department that will run from February to July 2025.

Sterile processing is the sanitisation of equipment and items used in clinical care. The highly specialised cleaning process ensures items are completely safe for use. All surgical tools are cleaned and packaged in this area to support the over 9,000 surgeries undertaken at KEMH per year. Any items that are re-used across the hospitals are also processed through this department.

Chief Operating Officer Preston Swan comments: “This is a long overdue upgrade project that will remedy the issues that have impacted SPD over the last few years, such as equipment failure and floods.  The equipment is over 14 years old and the area is in the older part of the General Wing so the infrastructure is in urgent need of work. A failure in SPD could impact our ability to deliver life saving procedures and deliver safe care across our inpatient and outpatient service. This is a priority project for us that will enable us to deliver the safest, most efficient sterile processing service in the support of patient care.”

The project will cost about $4.5 million in total and will include the replacement of equipment, furniture and the floor as well as an upgrade of the infrastructure.

Mr Swan continues: “We anticipate the upgrade work in SPD will start in February and be completed by July 2025. While the department is upgraded, we will use a temporary sterile processing area that is currently being constructed in the old surgical area of the General Wing, just opposite the existing location.

“The capacity of the temporary area will be enough to meet most of our needs during the upgrade, but there will be some patient impact. We anticipate there will be a reduction in the number of major elective surgeries undertaken in any one day, such as hips and knee replacements, as these are very instrument intensive. I would stress, however, that we will be able to complete all emergency and time-sensitive surgical needs, for example trauma, emergency caesarians or cancer surgeries, and there will be less impact on procedures that don’t need much instrumentation, such as pain management, some cardiology procedures, endoscopy and urology procedures.”

Once complete, the upgrade will ensure a much more consistent sterile processing service, optimising safety, quality and efficiency.

“We apologise that there will likely be fewer major elective surgeries during the first half of year,” Mr Swan says. “We will continue to do all we can to minimise the patient impact across all our services. Certainly the upgrade of this critical area is required to ensure that the sterile processing service is as robust and efficient as possible to meet the long term needs of Bermuda patients for the years ahead.”

 

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