PRIMUS Sterilizer Maintenance Overview

These common sense principles apply to steam sterilizer maintenance conducted by an outside ASA or by an in-house technician.

Sterilizer Maintenance Overview
The whole concept of Preventive Maintenance (PM) is to avoid downtime.
You want to always avoid call-backs on PM and Corrective Maintenance (CM) calls.
Call-backs are costly and irritating to the end user.
Call-backs equate to machine downtime and unhappy customers.
All sterilizers will eventually fail to function as designed without proper maintenance.
Planned maintenance downtime makes for more satisfied customers.
There is no such thing as a “lemon sterilizer”!
• Machines deviate from design parameters for logical reasons

All sterilizers leave the PRIMUS factory fully-tested, documented, and are essentially identical.
“Repair by Replacement” is always an unacceptable practice!
Variables enter the picture once a sterilizer leaves the shipping dock
• Technician knowledge and expertise
• Transportation
• Utilities
• Knowledge of end users
• Level of use - ranges from 3 – 130+ cycles/week

Technicians are not prepared to conduct a PM or CM when they:
• Do not have proper inventory of spare parts
• Do not have all the testing equipment needed
• Do not have the knowledge and experience to handle all problems
• Have not attended the PRIMUS InSpire Sterilizer Training

Use the PRIMUS standard PM routine and interval. Follow it each time.
You must keep detailed records. Digital photographs are also extremely helpful.
Communicate with the customer or supervisor
• What happened and why
• Review actions taken and the charges with the responsible supervisor before you leave
• Avoid surprises

Provide a clearly written Call Report to the customer or supervisor.
Customers and supervisors are important – Listen to them – Educate them - Ask questions.
Assume nothing.
Get and give contact information – make communications easy.
Verify that the sterilizer operator has your contact information.
Encourage the user to contact you immediately if any problems or questions arise. The quicker issues can be resolved the better off the unit and end-user will be.
If the customer or supervisor doesn’t understand what you did, it can result in a lack of confidence and trust in you and PRIMUS.
Communicate unusual issues to PRIMUS as soon as possible. Include call reports, trip reports, cycle tapes, etc. to aid PRIMUS in determining root cause(s) and develop appropriate countermeasures.
Do not let problems fester until they become a costly crisis for you and PRIMUS.