Using peracetic acid near patients

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Our unit has been having some nasty issues with biofilm in our machines/connectors/loop (I don't think anyone's really figured out exactly where it is), and our biomed guy has been coming in on Sundays to clean the machines and loop with peracetic acid (same as Renalin, which I've never used). Now our coordinator and biomed wants us to start doing chemical rinse on the machines with peracetic acid 3 times a week. My big concern is that we will be using this stuff while there are still patients in the unit. I've talked to my coordinator about this, and she says there's enough ventilation on the unit that she's not concerned. I'm concerned about both vapors and contact with patients if this stuff is spilled, but I can't find any information about this. Does anyone have any information about using peracetic acid around patients, or can point me to resources where I can find out? We're going to start doing this as soon as we have enough supply.

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Wow! That is intense. I have never heard of going to those lengths before. We have had to soak the hansens in bleach weekly. And we were having trouble with positive cultures in the ro and the loop. For that we stopped shutting down the ro completely and instead we place it in flush for the night. That took care of those issues.

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Wow! That is intense. I have never heard of going to those lengths before. We have had to soak the hansens in bleach weekly. And we were having trouble with positive cultures in the ro and the loop. For that we stopped shutting down the ro completely and instead we place it in flush for the night. That took care of those issues.

Aren't they worried about flooding when leaving the RO on all night? Or is that crazy talk?

I work in acutes so I know it's a different system but we have flooded before! Yikes! Caused tons of damage.

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Wow! That is intense. I have never heard of going to those lengths before. We have had to soak the hansens in bleach weekly. And we were having trouble with positive cultures in the ro and the loop. For that we stopped shutting down the ro completely and instead we place it in flush for the night. That took care of those issues.

That's interesting - we were soaking hansens in bleach for a little while, but there was concern about corrosion, so we stopped. I'd like to know more about flushing the ro - do you use a portable ro, or a larger one? Our ro water goes into a large holding tank (several hundred liters), not sure if we can flush it.

Not sure if it's coincidence or not, but we didn't have these culture issues until a few months after our city water supply switched from chlorine to chloramines.

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Aren't they worried about flooding when leaving the RO on all night? Or is that crazy talk?

I work in acutes so I know it's a different system but we have flooded before! Yikes! Caused tons of damage.

I work inpatient too. Unfortunately, we have had some issues with flooding on the fifth floor. But it is a central ro system and always has to flow anyway.

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Specializes in Dialysis.

Our R/O stays on all the time in my chronic unit, never had a flood. (knocks on wood)

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