Home » શિક્ષણ સહાયક ભરતી અંગે મહત્વની જાહેરાત: ઉમેદવારોએ 9 જૂન પહેલા કરવું પડશે આ કામ ### —— Investigating The Dangerous Reality Of Unsterilized Medical Devices Medical devices that have not been sterilized properly are a major concern in healthcare, due to the high risk they pose of spreading infection or causing disease. Now, Singapore’s Temasek Foundation and Quantanics are using blockchain to ensure that endoscopes are functioning correctly and are adequately cleaned to prevent them from becoming a source of harmful bacteria and diseases. ## Medical Devices As A Source Of Infection In modern medicine, it is common for doctors to use an endoscope to examine parts of the body that would otherwise require surgery, or some other invasive measure to view. This is a step towards better brushing teeth. In some cases, that can mean making small surgical incisions in order to insert the equipment. In others, it could mean inserting it into the mouth, or an existing surgical wound, in order to minimize re-traumatization to the patient. Through this application, doctors are able to better examine their patients, which can improve diagnoses and treatment plans. However, endoscopes are not without their own issues. For one, they are frequently reused, which creates the potential to use a dirty instrument in an already delicate case. Improperly sterilized equipment can transmit a host of diseases, including drug-resistant bacterial infections. Further complicating matters, endoscopes are tricky pieces of equipment. Due to their size and shape, endoscopes can be difficult to get into nooks and crannies that may harbor bacteria or other potentially dangerous organisms. Thus, they can easily become reservoirs for bacteria, which can then be transmitted to the next person in which they are used. This can also have the unintended effect of complicating the patient’s health, and possibly infecting them with a disease they may not have otherwise had. Because traditional sterilization methods are not necessarily effective against some bacteria, such as C. difficile or H. pylori, it is critical that medical professionals be certain that their equipment is clean. A 2016 study found that bacteria can become embedded within the materials making up the endoscope, which may be part of why sterilization can be ineffective before it is used again. The CDC recommends endoscopes without internal channels for low-risk procedures, which can be sterilized, over those with channels. However, procedures with a higher risk of infection, such as bronchoscopy, cystoscopy (the use of an endoscope in the bladder) or colonoscopy, require a flexible endoscope in order to properly carry out the procedure to determine diagnosis. The CDC estimates that roughly 50 infections are linked to contaminated endoscopes, but admits that they have no way of knowing the actual number of people who become sick from them. ## A Clear Need For Validation Considering that medical providers have no way of definitively knowing if they are fully clean and safe, the job of an endoscope technician becomes especially crucial. Anastasia Theriot, an endoscopy technician and member of the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) working group for scrubs, told CR Magazine that, “The people who process scopes need to know that they are not just cleaning, but thoroughly disinfecting each endoscope. If they don’t know how to confirm that the scope is properly cleaned, they can’t be sure that they are putting a clean and disinfected scope back into the procedure room.” Rinse test systems are one way to determine if an endoscope is free from residue and pathogens. The system injected purified water into a device and extracted it to measure the number of proteins, hemostats, carbohydrates, hemoglobin, and adenosine triphosphate (ATP). To help ensure effective live monitoring, Quantanics is partnering with Temasek Foundation Ecosperity to use blockchain and IoT to monitor and ensure compliance with high cleaning standards. This would mean that the use of irrigation systems in hospitals can be tracked online in blockchain while cleaning procedures are performed to ensure optimal safety. Quantanics CEO Phua Tien Beng told The Straits Times, “Temasek Foundation Ecosperity and Quantanics are taking the first step to implement blockchain at the endoscope patient touch point to increase transparency, quality, efficiency and safety in patient care.” Using a blockchain solution means analytics can be applied to irrigation systems, all information is recorded and stored in a tamper-proof location, and all parties involved in asset management have a permanent record that cannot be edited or modified. As a result of using blockchain, the risk of a patient contracting an infection from a medical professional using unsterilized equipment would be greatly reduced. That level of accountability directly aligns with Temasek Foundation’s vision to promote sustainability and healthy lives, safe from a variety of infectious diseases. ## Creating A Global Impact By working together, Temasek Foundation Ecosperity and Quantanics hope to have blockchain-based technology be more widely adopted in healthcare, not just for medical devices like endoscopes, but also to ensure that the quality of medical care is maintained. Blockchain is already being used in other cases, such as tracking medical records, using self-sovereign identity to allow patients and providers to have secure access to records. This can come in handy, especially when patients are seeing multiple specialists who may not be aware of one another’s treatment plans. The aim is to expand its use beyond Singapore so that more people are able to enjoy safe health solutions. Beng also noted that the government in Singapore is willing to do as much as possible to get blockchain technology into healthcare, as the benefit of it will be that patient care is greatly improved, and diseases and adverse events can be prevented to a significant degree.