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Mechanical Engineering Industry Association (VDMA). But a rethink is now also taking place in the medical technology industry and we hope that we can make a first step and important contribution here with our VDI technical committee and the guideline project on hygienic design. Do you think that mechanical cleaning will play a more significant role in the future than it does today? Mechanical cleaning or general processing, where disinfection and sterilisation are also required, is easier to standardise than manual processes, which are always person-dependent. Person-dependent always means that it is time-consuming and can lead to errors. Mechanical processing therefore offers numerous advantages: Principally, the preferred processing method is automated processing, especially for low-germ and sterile medical devices. This is because it is the only way to reliably guarantee that the process is controllable and safe and that the result is always the same. Manual processes, such as those often used for medical beds, couches and similar systems, are much more prone to errors. The result in terms of hygiene is not so good. I believe it will be important in the future to make work processes efficient in consideration of the costs. In some countries, the use of washing tunnels is more common than in others. Do you think that the current crisis situation will lead to a rethink here? The crucial question will be, what are the benefits of using a washing tunnel for me? If there are advantages from the perspective of efficiency and profitability, then this is always a very compelling argument. If the potential lies on the qualitative side, many people will be hesitant because it is of course an initial investment and processes have to be converted. I could imagine that due to the increasing hygiene awareness and perhaps also due to requirements made ultimately by the legislator, the quality aspect will become increasingly important and thus there is no way around such an investment. I believe that something like this will definitely pay off. However, it is difficult to make such an argument in Germany: Our system is still very cost-driven and you only ever see the initial investment. The life-cycle costs are not usually taken into account. Often there is simply not enough space to accommodate washing tunnels in the facility. Do you have an idea what items other than hospital beds could be used in washing tunnels? Washing tunnels could also be used for non-fixed treatment chairs, commode chairs, couches and tables, for example. However, the future is not only the washing tunnel, but also automation in general. There are projects in robotics that will perform an automatic cleaning process: The cleaning tool comes to the product and not the other way around. Things like that will come. There might be something like a hood to perform the cleaning process on site - the mobile washing robot. There are also research projects where driverless transport systems bring hospital beds into washing tunnels. That is a work in progress. Katja Eberhardt in conversation with Prof. Clemens Bulitta To what extent does automation already play a role in preparation in addition to the washing tunnels? Well, this is an exciting topic. Currently, surface cleaning by means of wet cleaning or wet wipes is the preferred method for processing surfaces and objects. However, there are various research projects underway on the role of alternative approaches, such as UVC light or cold plasma. On the other hand , these approaches have an impact on the product design, such as for instance ageing of plastics due to UVC light. That means that the processing is a complex process with many influencing factors. Therefore, it is so important to define the goal or the result of the processing procedure and to derive a validated processing procedure from it or based on it. Moreover, manufacturers must do this themselves and make it available to users. Prof. Clemens Bulitta explains how bacteria can be detected on surfaces with measuring instruments. Is this regulated in the ISO 17644 standard you spoke of earlier? Yes, these are basically the instructions for manufacturers with regard to the preparation process. What are the requirements for a preparation process? In principle, any hygiene and infection prevention measure should be strong, efficient and effective, i.e. it should not be prone to errors, should not require additional effort and should have an excellent result. If a washing tunnel or other methods do this, they will certainly prevail. What is your personal opinion, will we have to prepare for pandemics, as now with the coronavirus, in the future? Can we protect ourselves from this and, if so, how? Such pandemics have always existed and will always exist. The frequency may increase. We can only protect ourselves if we take a closer look at the system as a whole. There is the One Health approach, in which the systemic interrelationships of humans, animals, the environment and health are considered and taken into account across disciplines. If you understand what the correlations are, you can, for example, prevent a pathogen from jumping from one species to another and becoming dangerous. If we succeed, we will have achieved a great deal. We need to find ways to live with pandemics, as we have now done with the coronavirus. I am impressed by how quickly and how much we have already learned about the SARS-CoV2 virus and are thus able to deal with the situation in a targeted manner. The spring lockdown was certainly the right thing to do. With the knowledge gained, it is now possible to lead an almost normal life in many areas, provided that simple hygiene rules such as the AHA rules (German acronym for distance, hand hygiene, everyday masks) and ventilation are followed to prevent the rapid spread of infections. This can be the strategy. We just have to find clever ways without doing harm and limiting our lives too much. LINAK.COM/MEDLINE-CARELINE