Partners
Smart sterilization for a safer Healthcare
Surgical wound infections affect millions of patients worldwide and entail high risks and costs. One of the main causes? Inadequate sterilization of surgical instruments. The Dutch Ansana and Flemish Sentigrate are working with support from CrossRoads Flanders-Netherlands on SteriWatch, a tool that provides full control over and insight into the sterility of instruments, from sterilization to the operating room.
The problem of Surgical site Infection
Every surgical procedure carries risks, but one of the greatest dangers lies in an invisible enemy: bacterial infections due to inadequately sterilized instruments. Every year, thousands of patients suffer from surgical site infections (SSIs), caused by inadequate reprocessing of surgical instruments.
Dominique Surinx (CEO & Co-founder Ansana): “Inadequate sterilization not only leads to health problems for patients, but also puts enormous financial and operational pressure on hospitals due to the costs of reoperations, extended hospital stays and additional medication use. In order to improve patient safety, cost efficiency and sustainability, there is a growing need to optimize reprocessing processes and sterilization processes.”
Smart sterilization technology
Dominique: “Ansana develops innovative sterilization solutions for medical instruments. Our mission is to reduce SSIs and make healthcare more cost-efficient and sustainable. We want to achieve this by developing ‘SteriWatch’, a sterilization technology equipped with the unique combination of advanced sensors and a real-time track-and-trace system. The sensors measure crucial parameters such as temperature, pressure and exposure time, while the tracking system accurately records the location of the sterilization containers. This ensures that each instrument is sterilized correctly and remains sterile until the moment of use.”
“To achieve this, we found the ideal partner in Sentigrate. They have expertise in designing and building customized software solutions, real-time data processing and workflow optimization.
In addition, the consortium is calling on the expertise of the Flemish Comate for the development of sensors that meet the highest quality standards. Hospital East Limburg will test SteriWatch in a realistic hospital environment.
Impact
Thomas De Moor (CEO Sentigrate): “The societal impact of this innovation is situated in various areas. For example, we expect a 10% decrease in SSIs, with direct health benefits for patients and significant cost savings for hospitals.”
