Piedmont Atlanta Hospital, USA Successfully uses ProReveal Protein Detection Test to Optimize its Decontamination Process and Maintain Excellent Patient Safety

Synoptics Health, a manufacturer of innovative digital imaging systems for healthcare applications, has announced that its ProReveal test to accurately detect proteins on surgical instruments is being used at Piedmont Atlanta Hospital, USA, a leader in patient care, to optimise the performance of their washer-disinfection process. This is helping to protect patients at the hospital from accidentally contracting infections such as vCJD (Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease) from contaminated surgical instruments.

The highly sensitive ProReveal in-situ fluorescence test is being used in the Sterile Processing Department (SPD) at Piedmont Atlanta Hospital to precisely quantify how much protein remains on surgical instruments after they have been decontaminated post-operation. Since ProReveal provides semi-quantitative data on residual protein, SPD personnel can test how well the cleaning process has performed by detecting proteins that cannot be seen with the naked eye. This makes benchmarking the process and then assessing new detergents or methods of hand washing surgical instruments for example, a quicker and more accurate task.

Linda Schultz, Central Service Manager at Piedmont Atlanta Hospital explained, “In 2016 we purchased the ProReveal and were amazed at what we could see using this system. The test has helped us to detect where proteins gather which we just couldn’t see with the naked eye and it even alerted us to the washer running out of detergent as the amount of protein left on an instrument one day was around 14 micrograms, well over our acceptable safe limit of 0-5 micrograms/instrument.”

Linda continued: “Now we use the ProReveal each shift and our SPD staff tests an instrument from every level of the washer. By changing some of the conditions in our washer-decontaminators we have managed to get our process to routinely clean to between 0 and 5 micrograms of residual protein per instrument, which we’re proud of. We like using the ProReveal because it gives us a level of comfort that the surgical instruments we’re sending back into the operating room are really clean and this makes us feel great about the job we’re doing here for our patients.”

Guy Fiddian, of Synoptics Health concluded: “Forward thinking hospitals are really starting to embrace the ProReveal and we’re delighted that our test’s benchmarking capabilities have helped SPD staff at Piedmont Atlanta Hospital to get the best out of their decontamination process. Their intelligent use of the ProReveal is significantly reducing the risk of patients contracting potentially serious infections from reprocessed surgical instruments and is testimony that this excellent hospital takes patient care very seriously.”