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Writer's pictureNoel McCarthy

How to Keep Rented Medical Equipment Clean in Your Home

Updated: May 25, 2022

Handicapped and sick people have Hoya lifts, beds, chairs, portable x-ray machines brought into their homes all the time. Allegedly, they would have been disinfected, but why, as a patient or homeowner, would you accept that?


disinfecting rented medical equipment_Sterifab

Or - you may well ask - why is it so important to have the rented medical equipment in your home disinfected? Seems a little extreme, wouldn’t you say? After all, your home is clean, even spotless, so what’s the problem?


Actually, the Centers for Disease Control has a ready answer to the question! “Bringing medical equipment and devices into the home that has not been properly cleaned and disinfected constitutes," they say, “an important reservoir for transmission of infection. By effectively combining the use of hand washing, barrier precautions, and meticulous cleaning and disinfection with an EPA-registered product, [you] should be able to continue to keep the home environment a safe place for...patients to receive care.”


Home Is Safer - But Be Alert!

In general, your home is a safer than a hospital or an ambulatory care center, but you still need to be aware of the risk of infection. Before you freak out, rest assured that epidemics are not a realistic risk and the threat of cross-infection is rare. But there are still some risks and you should be aware of them. Your healthcare provider is directly responsible for supplying you with the information you need about infection-control procedures in the home.


Preventing Infection in Your Home

Those procedures should cover such topics as hand hygiene, the proper cleaning and disinfection of equipment, and the safe storage of cleaned and disinfected devices.

Now, among the many products that are currently recommended for the home disinfection of reusable objects are bleach, alcohol, and hydrogen peroxide. But that might not be enough. By using one product that disinfects and kills all bacteria, you can ensure your safety and protection. And believe it or not ,Sterifab takes care of this. Sure, it can be tough to maintain home medical equipment to the same standards that are upheld in hospitals, but if you use the same disinfectant product as them - you can come close! And to protect your health - and that of your loved one - every effort should be made to clean and disinfect the home medical equipment in use.


One important point here: Rented medical equipment should be painstakingly cleaned before it is disinfected. Before you start cleaning you should examine the equipment’s surfaces for cracks or breaks that might lessen the effectiveness of either the cleaning or disinfection process. As you clean, make sure that you get into all the crevices, serrations, joints, and lumens of instruments, devices, or equipment. If, at any point, you discover that the patient is suffering from scabies bites, or you suspect that the equipment itself is host to bed mites, then you need to act immediately to eliminate the threat.


The Sterifab Solution - Literally

Sterifab is an antimicrobial agent that will instantly kill any microorganisms that are present on your rented medical equipment, especially resistant bacterial spores, which can be a problem. However, unlike antibiotics, which are designed to destroy microorganisms within the body, disinfectants like Sterifab work by obliterating microbes at the cellular level or at least hindering their basic metabolic functions. This is particularly important because observing the correct protocols for cleaning medical equipment will get rid of bed bugs ̶ should they make an appearance ̶ and also get rid of scabies.


This in one reason why Sterifab disinfectant spray is widely used in in hospitals, as well as dental surgeries, emergency rooms, ICUs, even veterinary offices and emergency care operations. And you can use it in your home, too!

In fact, Sterifab is specifically designed to:

  • Destroy microorganisms

  • Kill fungus

  • Kill viruses

  • Kill mold and mildew

  • Kill germs and disinfects

  • Eradicate pathogenic odors

What’s more, Sterifab not only reduces the level of microorganisms, but also works as a bacteriostatic, inhibiting bacterial growth, and as a fungistatic, preventing otherwise hard-to-control fungal growth. In other words, Sterifab is safe, effective and very easy to use.


How to Use Sterifab on Rented Medical Equipment

While we’re on the subject of using Sterifab (in fact, any EPA-approved disinfectant), it’s worth keeping in mind that alcohol also is not an EPA-registered detergent/disinfectant. So, don’t use it on your rented equipment. It simply isn’t effective!

But here are few basic pointers that should guide your equipment cleaning procedures:

  1. Regardless of wha product you use to clean your medical equipment, it’s best to choose easy-to-use, EPA-registered hospital grade disinfectants and cleaning products. And, most important: make sure that the product lists which microorganisms and viruses it kills.

  2. Make sure that all of your cleaning efforts are done in well-ventilated areas. Also, always use disposable gloves to protect yourself, or whoever does the actual cleaning.

  3. If blood or bloody fluids are visible on any part of the equipment wipe the affected surfaces with a cloth dampened with soap and water to remove any organic material ̶ then disinfect!

  4. Even if no visible organic material is present, you should still all the exterior surfaces using a cloth or wipe with either an EPA-registered detergent/germicide with a tuberculocidal or HBV/HIV label claim, or a dilute bleach solution of 1:10 to 1:100 concentration. Again, Sterifab does the trick!

In addition to the medical equipment itself, you should also be mindful of the fact that the patient’s entire room should be kept as clean as humanly possible. Again, here are some quick cleaning tips:

  1. Clean surfaces such as floors and tabletops regularly. Obviously, you should clean immediately if any kind of skills occurs or when these surfaces are discernibly tainted.

  2. Ensure that walls, blinds, and window curtains in the patient-care area are also cleaned regularly.

Finally, where you use Sterifab or not you should always follow manufacturers’ instructions when you’re using a product for disinfection purposes, i.e. vis a vis recommended use-dilution, material compatibility, storage, shelf-life, and disposal.


How Safe Is Safe?

Without getting into the politics of the larger, related issues, some mention should be made of the claims made by environmental groups that so-called “environmentally safe” products can be used as substitutes for conventional germicides in home-care setting. Unfortunately, many of these options ̶ such as ammonia, baking soda, vinegar, Borax, liquid detergent ̶ are not registered with EPA. More importantly, they should never be used for disinfecting purposes since they are wholly ineffective against such things as S. aureus, Salmonella Typhi and E. coli.


Just don’t assume that store-bought disinfectants are effective against all antibiotic-resistant bacteria. They aren’t! If you do need bed bug spray or you need to combat some other insecticidal interlopers your best bet is Sterifab!


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