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A comment on Italian hospital saves Covid-19 patients by 3D printing valves. Parent comment

Re:Italian hospital saves Covid-19 patients by 3D printing v... by wwweston on Monday March 16, 2020 @04:15AM (#22590928)
I agree with the values you're describing here, but it's still not clear to me that a re-use workflow needs to be that different from single-use. Presumably the single-use involves tossing used pieces into a biohazard disposal container to be removed later. What's the issue with tossing the same material into a biohazard container of things to be solution-rinsed autoclaved and/or UVd the hell out of, then maybe wrapped or banded so that it's clear they're clean?

Maybe it's a labor/scale issue?

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Re:Italian hospital saves Covid-19 patients by 3D printing v... by Svip on Monday March 16, 2020 @04:27AM (#22590961)
Labour/scale, indeed. The facilities where these things are usually produced have the capacity to make sure they are sterile. Hospitals cannot sterilise items to the same scale.

You just need to be careless once for it to be a problem. And considering how many sterile items you need to use every day - particularly in an emergency - it is not unlikely that one item went back into the reuse cycle without being sterilised. It's to avoid the question, 'was this item sterilised?' If its wrapper is open, assume it is used. You can only do that safely with single-use items.

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Re:Italian hospital saves Covid-19 patients by 3D printing v... by Entalpi on Monday March 16, 2020 @04:41AM (#22591031)
Except that sterilised items usually are repackaged in some way that removes this doubt.

I have seen many different techniques for this kind of workflow.

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Re:Italian hospital saves Covid-19 patients by 3D printing v... by richmarr on Monday March 16, 2020 @04:37AM (#22591015)
> If its wrapper is open, assume it is used. You can only do that safely with single-use items.

How about putting the re-usable item in a wrapper so that the same rule can apply.

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Re:Italian hospital saves Covid-19 patients by 3D printing v... by killjoywashere on Monday March 16, 2020 @05:38AM (#22591270)
All surgical steel is reused exactly this way. There are plenty of plastics that get autoclaved as well.
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Re:Italian hospital saves Covid-19 patients by 3D printing v... by raverbashing on Monday March 16, 2020 @04:36AM (#22591004)
Yeah. For example, thinking about needles and syringes, they used to be disinfected by boiling water. That's certainly not enough to kill all existing pathogens especially after you used it in a person.

You probably need to autoclave the parts, and then some more to be sure.

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Re:Italian hospital saves Covid-19 patients by 3D printing v... by pvaldes on Monday March 16, 2020 @06:38AM (#22591519)
This would be ok some decades ago. Now we know that prions can survive
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Re:Italian hospital saves Covid-19 patients by 3D printing v... by raverbashing on Tuesday March 17, 2020 @03:56AM (#22602709)
Autoclaving is hard but it seems to be doable for Prions https://consteril.com/prion-sterilization-guide/

Simple boiling won't do much even for viruses

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