ECRI Institute recently announced the results of its user experience survey on endoscope reprocessors and Advanced Sterilization Products (ASP), Custom Ultrasonics, Medivators, Olympus Corporation of the Americas and STERIS Corporation took the cake.

Hospitals and health systems all over the world used ECRI's SELECTplus User Experience Network (UEN) to share their experiences with one or more of the 11 different automatic endoscope reprocessor (AER) models.

AERs are used to clean and disinfect flexible endoscopes after each procedure — failing to properly do so can expose future patients to infection risks and result in serious repercussions for hospitals. AERs that either break down often or are difficult to use can cause an even greater risk of ineffective endoscope cleaning and lead to pricey delays.
ECRI set out to help hospitals make the right decision on AERs. They polled hundreds of endoscope reprocessor users on the devices' ease of use, reliability, endoscope compatibility, service and vendor support.

The survey includes user satisfaction by vendor and model, feature comparisons, market share and the average quoted pricing that was taken from vendors' proposals submitted by the hospitals.

According to the survey, ASP's EVOTECH was the leader in the market, then came Custom Ultrasonic's 83 Plus 2, Medivators's DSD Edge, Olympus' OER-Pro and Steris' System 1E. As of February 2014, ASP's average list price was over $60,000.

For reliability, Medivators got a 4.2 rating out of 5, and Olympus came in just behind them with a 4.1 rating. ASP and Custom Ultrasonics both have a 3.9 rating and Steris' rating is 3.5.

Manufacturers are often quick to highlight their features and benefits but now they have to show their value by having a high level of reliability, a lower cost, or data on better performance. According to ECRI, one thing that might set one vendor apart from another is whether they only let a customer use a proprietary germicide or if they offer a choice between compatible agents.

ASP only allows the use of an aldehyde germicide and Medivators and Steris only allow an oxidizing germicide but Custom Ultrasonics and Olympus allow both.

ECRI has other network survey results for CT scanners, ultrasound imaging, beds, monitors and alarm management. Right now, they are working on their next survey: MRI systems. Those results are expected to be released this month.

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