Sterilization plays a key role in prevention of institutional infections. The effectiveness of the sterilization process depends on many factors, among which the most important is to make all the surfaces of medical tools which come in contact with a patient sterile. The main point of this work was to evaluate the sterilization condition in hospitals of the Zachodniopomorskie Voivodship.
Material and methods. The research comprised 34 hospitals of the Zachodniopomorskie Voivodship supervised by the State Sanitary Inspection. The research was performed in August 2005. The applied research tool was a survey. Hospitals with 81-300 beds (20 hospitals), accounting for 59% of all hospitals, constituted the biggest group in the research.
Results. Results of the research indicate that the most popular method of sterilization was sterilization with compressed steam — it accounted for 77% of all the used methods. Central sterilizing unit was declared by 88% of the hospitals. Nevertheless, only 38% have a convenient connection with the operative unit and other units of the hospital. Only 48% of hospitals with 81-300 beds have separated dirty, clean and sterile zones. All hospitals equipped with a central sterilizing unit claim they perform an internal inspection of sterilization using chemical and biological indicators. Most of the hospitals use multi-parameter indicators. Only 6.7% do not perform these inspections. The results of the research indicate that functionality of central sterilizing unit, as well as the process of monitoring in some of the hospitals are inadequate. As many as 52% of the hospitals in the group of hospitals with 81-300 beds monitor the sterilization process using biological test only once a quarter of a year. An average number of biological tests per one autoclave were 25.4 for hospitals with 301-500 beds and 37.9 for hospitals with 81-300 beds.
Conclusion. It is important to continue educational activities for the employees of central sterilizing unit and the executive personnel of hospitals on taking responsibility of making a sterile product. This will definitely contribute to a decline in the risk of mass infections in hospitals.