Loading steilizer carts

[haviland]

Have recently taken over a new department and when loading their autoclave carts they have been placing their basin sets on the top rack ( over wraped items and containers ) I was taught basins on the bottom shelf due to drainage issues. Have things changed in the last few years? Also if anyone can direct me to pictures showing this it would be helpful
thanks

[jrc]

I don't have any pictures, but I have never heard that basin sets need to be on the bottom. I was taught to tilt them, but never to keep them on the bottom. Now, rigid containers need to be on the bottom becasue they can drip on packages below.

[Diane]

I would think nothing should be directly on top of wrapped items. The only thing we stack are the metal boxes and they are designed for that. The basins should be up on there sides so that the moisture can drain out either on the top rack or bottm. We line our carts with a sheeting material so that we don't have the problem with anything above the bottom rack draining unto the lower items. But again nothing should be lying on top of them.

[Uprooted Scrub]

We usually put our rigid containers on the bottom two shelves of the sterilizer rack. We also place our basins tilted on their sides on the lower shelf of the sterilizer rack. If we have a lot of basins, we process them all together - same with rigid containers. We can configure the movable shelf sections on the racks, so we also sometimes process basins and rigid containers together (on the lower shelves).

Hope this helps. Happy holidays.

Blaine