In Caserta the first specialized center for the sterilization of medical devices

In Caserta the first specialized center for the sterilization of medical devices

The project, a technical-scientific avant-garde for the whole of Campania and the South, has found full acceptance, support and great sharing by the mayor of Caserta Charles Marino
Caserta will be the seat of the first Italian center specialized in the sterilization of medical devices, based on the international patent SterOut, developed in 2009 by Antonio Della Valle, from Caserta, a specialist in Oral Surgery, Forensic Anthropology, medical-legal coordinator of Cescrin and university professor. SterOut is a protocol of methodologies for the sterilization of reusable medical devices that guarantee high standards of reliability, safety and medical-legal protection.

Functional sterilization, which today among other things responds to important social and health emergencies, integrates the use of nanotechnological devices, 'green' technologies, controlled atmosphere treatments, recovery of water and vapors with zero environmental impact, nanomolecular solutions with high bactericidal, virucidal, sporicidal power and the introduction of the new figure of the Sterilization Operator (O.ST.), for which the first European professionalizing Course for Sterilization Technical Operator was activated, on the initiative of Della Valle, at the UniCamillus University of Rome.
The project of the Sterilization Center, which represents a technical-scientific vanguard for the whole of Campania and the South, has found full acceptance, support and great sharing by the mayor of Caserta Carlo Marino, with the commitment to identify areas suitable for a location with high logistical functionality and precisely in the lots facing the building of the Polyclinic, an area definable as strategic and completely at the service of the health needs not only of the main hospitals of Caserta, but also of all the numerous private structures of the Province of Terra di Lavoro.

Furthermore, many city councilors have underlined its promotional value for the territory, in terms of redemption, scientific innovation and rebirth of skills.
"With this initiative - says Mayor Marino - we are starting an innovative path that will lead to the creation of a Healthcare Technology Hub in the areas in front of the Policlinico, which can become a driving force for work for our young people. We are proposing to put this center and the healthcare hub as elements of the Next Generation EU, as a measure of technological innovation and competitiveness of the South".

The Sterilization Center concerns all sectors that carry out the biological cycle of dirt on reusable instruments. The fields of application include on the one hand all medical disciplines, both human and veterinary; surgical specializations, dentistry and dermatology; biological, diagnostic and laboratory activities, as well as works that present inferences and adhesions with organic elements, as in the case of reusable devices resulting from aesthetic treatments. "The Center - explains Della Valle - responds to epidemiological needs, to combat emerging and previous pathologies through the complete disintegration of viruses and bacteria; professional, with the acquisition of new profiles capable of establishing the biological risk upstream, when the reusable medical device enters the Center; technological, based on the control of waste water, saturated vapors, active energy profiles; above all the process of certifying the device and guaranteeing its reliability in reuse according to "track & trace" methods that codify the process along the entire sterilization path".

Sterilization in outsourcing, with the assignment of global management to the Headquarters, also allows a drastic reduction in management costs by improving the quality and efficiency of the service, exclusive and advanced compliance with the regulations that regulate sterilization, the control of personnel who are not with "probable and possible" competence, but specifically specialized, flexibility and reduction of production costs. Furthermore, the clients, public and private, by effectively eliminating the costs for surgical instrumental goods and the risk of internal storage of viral and bacterial forms, will be able to obtain tax advantages for the purchase of fully deductible services, reducing their liability in the case of viral infections resulting from the use of medical devices. Technical spaces and areas will be freed up that will be reserved only for treatments and not for the production of services. “If nosocomial infections are a health hazard and if viruses mutate quickly – concludes Della Valle –., this battle can be won with cutting-edge methodologies, with highly trained professionals, with a rational safety model and with adequate quality and sustainability of costs related to real services”.

Gustavo Gentile