Because of the ongoing need for Single Use Instruments, a healthcare practitioner may be forced to postpone or cancel operations if there are any product supply concerns. The key advantage of a reusable device is that the hospital is less reliant on having a consistent, uninterrupted supply of the devices they require to guarantee that they have enough devices for normal surgeries. If a specific solvent or disinfectant distributor is unable to provide cleaning supplies on time, the hospital or clinic can readily obtain such goods from another supplier.
Advantages of reusable medical devices over Single Use Instruments
Product supply challenges can arise from two sources: the healthcare provider and the device maker, or the device manufacturer and their contractors or suppliers. If a healthcare provider is unable to get enough devices to meet their demand, they may be able to obtain identical equipment from other device makers, unless contractual commitments restrict them from doing so. All competing devices on the market for the same intended application have gotten regulatory approval and provided strong proof that their product is safe and effective. However, if a device manufacturer encounters supply issues from a contractor or vendor, qualifying assemblies, processes, or components from an alternate vendor may be difficult, costly, and time-consuming due to the specialized tooling and cGMP-compliant manufacturing processes required to manufacture the medical device.
This danger of disposable medical device manufacturing supply may be readily mitigated by device makers collaborating with a business with production capabilities dispersed across numerous geographic regions.
Certain reusable medical devices whose performance does not diminish after each use may also provide a financial benefit; despite the hazards and expenses associated with reprocessing and reusing them, some of these reusable devices may wind up costing less per treatment than Single Use Instruments.
Which Is Better: Reusable or Disposable Medical Devices?
Disposable medical devices should be chosen over reusable devices in any situation where cleaning the device is not particularly consistent or when infection risk is significant. Any instrument used in an intrusive surgery should be considered disposable rather than reusable.
Reusable devices, on the other hand, may be more feasible for topical treatments or non-invasive operations. To promote safety, specific pieces of these devices may be disposable.
Technology with Restricted Reuse
Reprocessing and reusing Single Use Instruments has become commonplace in the healthcare business. Single-use gadgets are thrown in bins and sent to reprocessing facilities. They are disassembled, cleaned, disinfected, reassembled, packed, re-sterilized, and then sold back to the healthcare institution (at a discount) to be used again.
Whether the arguments for reprocessing and reusing Single Use Instruments range from “cutting costs” to “reducing medical waste,” one thing is certain: medical device corporations cannot overlook the risk this practice poses to patients. One of the reasons that some big medical device makers have opted to buy these reprocessing firms might be to get more control over the dangers connected with reprocessing their equipment. Stryker Corporation’s 2009 acquisition of Ascent Healthcare Solutions and Ethicon Endo-Surgery’s (Johnson and Johnson 2011)’s acquisition of Sterilmed are two examples. If the original device maker also owns a reprocessing center, it can design its devices so that they can only be reprocessed by its reprocessing center (if desired).
Therefore, how can device makers keep their products from being reprocessed?
Mechanical use-limiting, single wire/electric limiting, electronically erasable programmable read-only memory limiting (EEPROM), and radio frequency identification limiting (“RFID”) are all choices for use-limiting technologies. Download our free eBook on the subject to learn more about these developments.
