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Sterile Technique and Hazardous Materials
Only sterile touches sterile, anything below the table edge is contaminated, and the SDS tells you how to handle a chemical.
Clean vs sterile
Medical asepsis, or clean technique, reduces the number and spread of microbes. Hand hygiene, clean gloves, and wiping the table and detector between patients are medical asepsis. Surgical asepsis, or sterile technique, removes all microbes from an object or area and keeps them out. It is used for arthrograms, myelograms, line placement, and any time skin is broken or a body cavity is entered. Disinfection uses chemicals to kill most pathogens on surfaces, but not always spores. Sterilization kills every microorganism, spores included, with steam under pressure in an autoclave, ethylene oxide gas, dry heat, or chemical sterilants.