Abstract
In the wards of our hospital, the primary disinfection of medical apparatus had been performed immediately after use. Glutaraldehyde (GA) preparations are used at many medical institutions for disinfection but their use in places with poor ventilation produces high concentrations of aldehyde vapor, which may affect the health of medical staff. In our hospital, primary disinfection in wards was discontinued after the introduction of washer-disinfectors in our central supply department. As a result, disinfection costs in 2001 were about 7 million yen less than the mean annual cost of GA preparations from 1996 to 1999.
In the endoscopy room, the disinfectant was changed from a GA preparation to an orthphtaladehyde (PA) preparation. Though this brought about an increase of about 5.3 million yen on the mean annual cost of the GA preparation from 1996 and 1999, since disinfection with PA required less time, more endoscopy examinations could be conducted, resulting in an increase in hospital revenue.
