Medical sterile storage cabinets provide a location for storing sterile instruments and supplies. Proper storage of sterile supplies helps maintain their cleanliness and avoid the need to repeat autoclaving or other sterilization processes. Medical sterile storage cabinets can also reliably transport medical instruments and supplies without contamination.
At Air Innovations, our medical sterile storage cabinets make it easy to manage sterile instruments. Our cabinets meet or exceed medical industry standards and maintain temperature and humidity to preserve sterile conditions.
Surgical Instrument Storage and Transportation
There are several challenges when storing and transporting sterilized surgical instruments:
- Medical cleanliness. Preserving sterility is the first critical challenge when storing surgical instruments. Sterilizing instruments can be expensive and time-consuming. Inadequate instrument storage ultimately leads to re-contamination, requiring a repeat sterilization process.
- Damage protection. Damaged instruments cannot be used in delicate medical procedures. An instrument cabinet plays an essential role in protecting sterile tools and equipment while they are not in use.
- Space optimization. Medical facilities often have limited or outdated space. Optimizing storage space is a primary consideration when selecting a storage cabinet. Surgical instrument storage cabinets and shelves are easy to organize with labels, names, and numbering systems, facilitating better equipment tracking and faster retrieval.
- Safety. Medical sterile storage cabinets offer a safe and effective method for transporting medical instruments between operating rooms, storage locations, and other areas.
Operating Room/Surgery Storage Cabinets
Surgical instrument storage cabinets deliver essential security and organization for critical surgical tools and other sterile equipment. Medical facilities can use sterile cabinets in a variety of locations:
- Operating rooms
- Surgical supply/instrument storage
- Laboratories
- Endoscopy departments
- Radiology labs
- Catheterization labs
The cabinets provide access to surgical supplies and instruments with improved organization and ease of identification. Storage cabinets may be stationary for longer-term storage or mobile to allow for easy transportation between locations. Surgical storage cabinets offer a variety of convenient design features, such as highly configurable shelves and document centers for charting and documentation.
Maintaining Proper Sterile Storage Conditions
Storing sterile supplies is essential for any operating room, though it can be difficult to do with limited space. Sterile facilities must develop a plan that protects the storage condition of supplies. Sterile storage should control moisture, temperature, and contamination potential by keeping humidity below 70% and storage temperature below 75°F. Preventing damage during transportation and storage is also crucial.
Storage areas should be kept clean with daily maintenance, and supplies should be checked and inventoried. It is also important to examine the shelf life of supplies to eliminate expired stock. Cabinet design elements are critical for preventing contamination, such as the height of the medical sterile storage cabinet from the floor and various filtration elements.
Even with regular inspections, medical staff may miss micro-tears in instrument packaging that can allow contaminating elements to reach the instrument in unsterile storage conditions. Keeping medical instruments and devices in a sterile storage location helps to mitigate contamination risk from imperceptible damage to packaging.
Air Innovations Sterile Storage Cabinet Features
Sterile storage cabinets from Air Innovations offer simple monitoring and control of environmental conditions within the cabinet. The SSC 4500 series sterile storage cabinet provides a portable sterile environment for instrument and supply storage. Users can control and monitor variables such as temperature, humidity, and positive air pressure. The ISO 4 (or better) HEPA filtration system controls particulate conditions with cleanroom-level air purification, and an optional UV-C light eliminates microbials.
The interior shelving in the SSC 4500 sterile storage cabinet is made of hospital-grade 304 stainless steel for ease of disinfection, and the exterior consists of lightweight aluminum with a durable powder coating. The SSC 4500 is mobile with casters and a 10-foot, 120v hospital-grade power cord. For quiet environments, the cabinet only outputs between 55-59 dBA at one meter when running. It also offers enhanced security with a locking door and keypad for access control.
The SSC 4500 series sterile storage cabinet meets the following industry standards:
- UL 60601-1
- ANSI/ASHRAE/ASHE 170-2017
- ANSI/AAMI ST79-2006
- CSA Z314.15-10
- VHA Directive 1116(2)
Medical Sterile Storage Solutions From Air Innovations
Medical sterile storage cabinets maintain sterile conditions for instruments and supplies in a range of applications. The SSC 4500 series sterile storage cabinet from Air Innovations features control and monitoring of the storage environment, cleanability, security, and mobility. Contact us to learn more about our sterile storage solutions.