Consultation on this standard closed on April 22, 2022.
About the standard
The current Reprocessing Medical Equipment standard requires physicians to follow directions given by CPSA’s Infection Prevention and Control (IPAC) Committee and ensure all reprocessed medical equipment is properly cleaned, disinfected and sterilized to manufacturer and CPSA standards.
What’s changed
- Rename Infection Prevention and Control to address broadening of standard and to indicate the content of the standard
- The current standard only addresses one subset of IPAC’s standards (Medical Device Reprocessing)
- The draft calls attention to the General Standards and, in particular, the new section on single-use medical devices (Part A)
- Clarify that the standard applies to all regulated members and their responsibility to prevent the potential spread of infection in clinical settings
- Add requirement for all regulated members to practice in accordance with all Infection Prevention and Control General Standards
- Clarify the requirement for using reprocessed medical devices in a non-hospital setting and extend to unaccredited facilities (e.g., community clinics)
- Add requirements on:
- Single-use medical devices in a non-hospital setting or unaccredited facility
- Ongoing quality assurance through monitoring practices and making changes accordingly
- Fully cooperating with any IPAC-related visit in accordance with the Health Professions Act
NOTE: Concurrent work is being done to rename the IPAC General Standards and Medical Device Reprocessing Standards to differentiate them from the standard of practice. See the rationale for changes to IPAC standard of practice.
View the draft standard
For your convenience, the draft standard has clean and marked copies available.
All ResourcesYour opinion matters
Changes to CPSA’s Standards of Practice impact your day-to-day practice. Your input is vital to ensuring the standards strike an appropriate balance between serving patient needs and setting reasonable expectations for your medical practice.
This consultation closed on April 22, 2022. Once amendments are finalized and approved by CPSA Council, physicians will be notified and made aware of any new expectations via The Messenger newsletter.
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All feedback is subject to CPSA’s Privacy Statement. CPSA reviews all comments before publication to ensure there is no offensive language, personal attacks or unsubstantiated allegations.
CPSA members, partner organizations, other health care professionals and Albertans were invited to provide feedback from March 22 to April 22, 2022. CPSA Council will consider non-nominal feedback when approving final amendments to the standard this fall.
Other feedback on this consultation
very important aspect to prevent infections
particularly those viral and other infections which are impossible to treat other than by preventing them with properly sterilized material and instruments
clinics who want to continue providing services using reprocessed equipment can either contract out the reprocessing services, use disposable instruments or assume the extra costs of the reprocessing
Alternatively clinics can refer patients in need to clinics or hospitals
To expect that a busy doctor would be familiar with new IPAC requirements, is stretching it a little bit, and unrealistic. One should always remember that anything called disposable , cost money and drive the cost of practicing medicine , and that cost must be included in higher fees to the practitioner. . Re usable and properly sterilized instruments , is a more cost effective way. We should guard against driving healthcare costs even higher.
Only concern is potential confusion between the renamed "Infection Prevention and Control (IPAC)" Standard of Practice, and the internally-referenced "Infection Prevention and Control (IPAC) General Standards". The hyperlink (not obvious) points to a CPSA website page with a lot of information, including several links to what appears to be the document referenced, but the paper version wouldn't even have that. Maybe just a clearer link from one document to the other, including in the print version?
These changes seem acceptable and in keeping with current practice patterns.
Yes, very important matter, well clarified