Technologies for monitoring the quality of endoscope reprocessing Prepared by

Transmission of infection via endoscopes remains very rare. Reported infections have usually been associated with a failure to follow established multisociety guidelines for reprocessing or defective equipment. The manual components of reprocessing are prone to human error. Emerging technologies for monitoring the quality of endoscope reprocessing offer the ability to perform rapid surveillance, which may potentially help reinforce adherence to the many steps in reprocessing. Bioburden/microbial benchmarks need to be established and validated widely, and the relative ease of use, costs, and relative efficacies of different methodologies need to be studied further before recommendations regarding widespread adoption of these technologies. Further studies are needed to determine whether surveillance strategies including ATP monitoring can effectively identify failures of cleaning, disinfection, or storage that are not detected by process monitoring and that create a risk of transmission of infection.