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The first 25 slides, exactly as they appear. The full deck has 45 content slides.
Anaesthesiology
Appendix C Decontamination of medical equipment
Built from Al-Shaikh — Essentials of Equipment in Anaesthesia, Critical Care and Peri-operative Medicine, 6e

What’s inside
8 sections · 45 slides
Overview
- What this deck will teach you
Why Decontamination Matters
Dirty equipment is a route for infection to spread
- The scale of the problem
- What goes wrong when equipment is not decontaminated
- What the word 'decontamination' actually covers
- The two things decontamination must achieve
Clean, Disinfect or Sterilize?
Match the level of processing to how the item is used
- Why not just sterilize everything?
- The three levels of processing
- The Spaulding classification: the key idea
- The Spaulding classification at a glance
- Critical items: the highest risk
- Semicritical items: the middle ground
- Noncritical items: the lowest risk
- How hard different microbes are to kill
- Why the order of resistance matters
Cleaning
Physically removing the material microbes live on
- What cleaning is, and why it comes first
- The four critical parameters of cleaning
- Manual cleaning
- Mechanical and ultrasonic cleaning
Disinfection
Cutting microbe numbers, but not spores
- What disinfection does
- Thermal washer disinfectors
- Common chemical disinfectants and their contact times
- Chemical disinfection and pasteurization
Sterilization
Destroying every last microorganism
- What sterilization means, and how sure we can be
- Steam sterilization: the gold standard
- Steam sterilization: strengths and limits
- Ionizing radiation
- Dry heat sterilization
- Ethylene oxide: versatile but hazardous
Proving Sterility and Single-Use
Monitoring sterilization and avoiding reuse
- Why monitor sterilization at all?
- The three types of sterilization indicator
- Colour-change chemical indicator inks
- The Bowie-Dick sterilizer test
- Single-use items: use once, then discard
Wrapping Up
What to carry away
- Key takeaways
- On decontamination of medical equipment, which points are true?
- References
- Essentials of Equipment in Anaesthesia, Critical Care, and Perioperative Medicine