Healthcare and pharmaceutical providers of all kinds, from hospitals and doctor’s offices to laboratories and urgent care facilities, need many machines, devices and tools to care for patients every single day. These spaces require an array of state of the art machines, devices and tools in order to provide proper care for patients. Keeping all of this equipment clean will ensure sanitization and safety in anything from operating rooms to triage units.
Silicone keypads and components can be found almost everywhere. Common silicone medical components and assemblies include airways; balloon catheters; tubing for feeding, drainage, and use with peristaltic pumps; compression bars; electrosurgical hand pieces; infusion sleeves and test chambers; introducer tips and flexible sheaths; wire/fluid-path coextrusions; ear plugs and hearing aids; shunts and septum’s; and a variety of gaskets, seals, stoppers, valves, and clips.
As these machines and devices come into contact with human bodies, it becomes a requirement to wipe bacteria clean from the device’s surfaces. This is both before and after contact with bodily fluids, skin or anything else. This is why it’s helpful to be able to sterilize the entire device at once without the need to dismantle it for cleaning and then reassembled after.
This is one of the many reasons why we choose to work exclusively with LSR via injection molding. With high tear and tensile strength, excellent flexibility, insulating properties (and even conductive properties), biocompatibility, and a hardness range from 5 to 80 Shore A, molded silicone rubber will remain stable through temperatures ranging from -75F – 400F. LSR also resists water, oxidation, chemicals, bacterial growth, and will not corrode or stain other materials.
Studies have revealed that platinum-cured silicone can withstand all types of sterilization processes, as necessary, on a regular basis. In extensive testing, silicone rubbers have exhibited superior compatibility with human tissue and body fluids and an extremely low tissue response when implanted, compared with other elastomers. Components have to withstand the sterilization procedure without degradation, and without being compromised. Here’s what can be done for cleaning:
- Dry Heat: This approach kills bacteria, used in operating temperatures between -45 degrees F and 450 degrees F.
- Autoclave: This device uses steam to sterilize platinum-cured LSR. This in turn destroys microorganisms, and is great for surgical instruments, forceps and medical implants.
- Rubbing Alcohol: The most common methods of sterilizing silicone, rubbing alcohol will kill bacteria as well as remove particles and/or dust.
- Gamma Radiation: May be used under certain circumstances.
Many devices used in these fields are touched hundreds or thousands of times every day. These products constantly overcome external deterrents like extreme temperature conditions, exposure to chemicals (usually via chemically-laced cleaning products), and even bacterial growth. Even worse, if many different people touch the surfaces of your keypads daily, you risk the spread of harmful germs. Thankfully, silicone rubber resists bacterial growth and is very easy to clean. Even more importantly, it can easily tolerate exposure to strong chemically-laced cleaning products. Rely on our talented engineers to manufacture components with liquid injection molding to accommodate whatever medical device you may have. Contact us for a quote or more information at 757-887-8488. Remember: all products are made right here in the USA, and we offer a wide spectrum of services, from conductive coatings to rapid prototyping.
