Ascent Healthcare Solutions, a leader in the medical device industry delivering efficiency and sustainability in healthcare, has added reusable ablation cables to its extensive product offering for the treatment and management of cardiac arrhythmias. Under a new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulation, hospitals are required to run their EtO sterilizers at full capacity except in medically necessary circumstances. Ascent offers hospitals a cost-effective sterilization option that eliminates any threat to the ozone layer from harmful ethylene oxide (EtO) emissions.
Ascent extended its offering to add reusable ablation cables at the request of hospitals that do not want the added expense and workflow demands of purchasing, storing and maintaining significantly more expensive original cables to ensure they have an adequate supply on hand. Although the new EPA regulations create an added urgency, many of Ascent’s environmentally responsible hospital partners have already responded to global environmental concerns about the impact of EtO emissions by moving away from in-house EtO sterilization and choosing third-party resterilization facilities, which also reduces their solid and hazardous waste. EtO tonnage dropped from 1,000 in 1995 to just 135 in 2005; however, some medical devices such as ablation cables cannot be sterilized using alternate methods. Unlike most hospital sterilizers, Ascent’s state-of-the-art, validated EtO sterilizers capture and recycle all EtO emissions.
Using validated cleaning, testing and packaging procedures, Ascent resterilizes reusable ablation cables according to the original equipment manufacturer’s instructions. The highest quality is ensured through lead-to-lead continuity testing on 100 percent of the resterilized cables.
“Most hospitals don’t have the financial or human capital needed to retrofit and revalidate their sterilizers as well as validate every sterilizer load to meet EPA and FDA requirements,” explained Ascent COO Rick Ferreira. “We are pleased to offer our hospital partners the convenience of the widest range of reprocessing and resterilization products for cardiac arrhythmia management to support their efforts to improve air quality and to focus on their core competency — patient care.”
About Ascent Healthcare Solutions
By continuously pioneering sustainability initiatives in healthcare, Ascent Healthcare Solutions has become a leader in the medical device industry. Ascent’s programs target inefficient practices to reclaim and redirect consumable and financial resources to promote healthy and responsible hospitals. Today, Ascent’s medical device sustainability programs deliver reprocessed and/or remanufactured medical devices, as well as comprehensive recycling and redistribution initiatives. Ascent has been recognized as a “Champion for Change” by Hospitals for a Healthy Environment (now Practice Greenhealth) in recognition of the dramatic environmental benefits its reprocessing programs provide to U.S. hospitals and surgery centers. Ascent’s 1,700 hospital partners include most of the U.S. News and World Report “Honor Roll” hospitals. The company has agreements with all leading national group purchasing organizations as well as numerous nationally recognized hospital integrated delivery networks. For more information about Ascent Healthcare Solutions, visit www.ascenths.com.
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