Abstract
To verify the usefulness of a steam sterilizer equipped with an electronic Bowie-Dick test system, this study was carried out using two methods, utilizing both a steam sterilizer and an electronic Bowie-Dick tester. The first method is to confirm the error detection of the chemical Bowie-Dick test pack and the electronic Bowie-Dick tester in a malfunctioning sterilizer environment. For this purpose, the Bowie-Dick test program for the steam sterilizer was used to test three types of test packs commonly used in hospitals and the electronic Bowie-Dick tester by changing the set values of temperature, time, and vacuum frequency. The second is an experiment to check the sterilizer's normal operation with the electronic Bowie-Dick tester and the usefulness of grasping the cause of the malfunction. The results showed that the sterilization temperature was the same as that of the test pack at a temperature $1{\sim}6^{\circ}C$ lower than the reference temperature of $134^{\circ}C$. In the test with the sterilization exposure time as a variable, there was a normal discoloration at a time difference of 30~90 s. In the experiment using the number of vacuum cycles, the test was correct by performing the normal discoloration only at the normal condition of 3 times. The test results of 30 hospitals were 100 failure tests by a total of 291 Bowie-Dick tests. Of these, the failure factors related to an internal temperature that the chemical test packs could not detect were the greatest, and the four factors related to temperature, including the internal temperature, were found to be 71.18% of total malfunctions. In addition, the Bowie-Dick tester was provided within 30 min after the start of the Bowie-Dick test to confirm the performance of the sterilizer and the detailed cause. A steam sterilizer equipped with an electronic Bowie-Dick test system is used to manage individual sterilizers. In the current steam sterilizer with many temperature-related errors, it is possible to check the malfunction of the temperature difference that the test pack cannot detect, and the cause of error for the sterilizer is immediately detected after the test. The steam sterilizer equipped with the electronic Bowie-Dick test system assists with infection control with accurate sterilizer performance assurance.
