JPH01281189A - Automatic washing apparatus for medical instruments - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To apply washing treatment to medical instruments in large quantities at a high speed by a method wherein a basket like washing container for receiving medical instruments is supported in a washing tank in a rotatable manner and a washing solution supply and discharge system for supplying and discharging a washing solution is provided to the washing tank and a hot air blow-off device for blowing hot air to the washing container is arranged. CONSTITUTION:The opening part 3 of an apparatus main body 1 is opened to charge contaminated medical instruments in a washing container 10. Subsequently, a washing tank 5 is filled with a washing solution and the rotatory power is imparted to the washing container 10 by a drive means 13. By this method, the washing solution is allowed to flow in the washing container 10 to wash off the contaminate bonded to the medical instruments and the contaminated washing solution in the washing tank 5 is discharged after washing. Next, hot air is blown toward the washing container 10 from a hot air blow-off device 24 to dry, sterilize and disinfect the washed medical instruments under heating. Thereafter, the supply of hot air is stopped and the drive means is also stopped and the opening part 3 of the apparatus main body 1 is opened to take out the washed, sterilized and disinfected medical instruments to prepare the apparatus main body 1 for the next use.

Description

[Detailed description of the invention] [Purpose of the invention] (Industrial application field) The present invention relates to an automatic cleaning device for medical instruments.

(Conventional technology) Disease 1! Medical instruments such as test tubes, flasks, beakers, and spills used for various tests in medical complications such as IF are used in large quantities at large medical institutions with a large number of patients. There will be 5 companies. Particularly in recent years, the causes of diseases have become more complex, and the contents of tests have become more diverse, so the amount of medical instruments used for these tests has inevitably continued to increase.

This type of medical equipment requires post-processing after use, such as cleaning, sterilization, and disinfection. Conventionally, these medical equipment had to be disposed of by a business operator who manually cleaned and disinfected them one by one. In fact, they even go so far as to sterilize and disinfect.

(Problem to be solved by the invention) In the current situation as described above, if a large amount of used medical instruments are manually processed from cleaning to sterilization, there is a natural limit to the amount of processing, which may lead to processing stagnation. This means that it takes a long time to conduct the test, and it takes a long time to notify the test subject of the test result, which takes more than three days from the test date, making it unsuitable for modern social conditions. . And because it takes a long time to obtain results, people working in busy industries or jobs may lose their desire to undergo testing, or it may be difficult to actually undergo testing. This problem has the potential to undermine the basics of medical care, which is to investigate the situation.Moreover, since these types of medical instruments are mainly made of glass, manual cleaning is likely to cause breakage and reduce efficiency. Not only is this bad, but the losses are large, and the rising labor costs are reflected in inspection costs, raising the price of inspections.In addition, it has become difficult to secure cleaning workers these days.

In view of the above-mentioned points, this invention can automatically and quickly perform everything from cleaning to sterilization of medical instruments, speeding up the circulation of medical instruments, and contributing to faster testing. Another object of the present invention is to provide an automatic cleaning device for medical instruments that is inexpensive and free from damage.

[Structure of the invention]

(Means for Solving the Problems) In order to solve the problems of the above-mentioned prior art, the present invention provides an apparatus main body having an opening through which medical instruments can be put in and taken out, and a cleaning tank provided in the apparatus main body. , a cylindrical cleaning container for loading medical instruments, which is disposed in the cleaning tank and is rotatably supported by a horizontal axis and is made of a water-permeable material; and a driving means for applying rotational force to the cleaning container. , a cleaning liquid supply and discharge system that supplies and discharges a cleaning liquid such as tap water or pure water to and from the cleaning tank, and a hot air blowing device that blows hot air toward a cleaning container in the cleaning tank; The invention is characterized in that the rotation of the hot air blower and the hot air supply by the hot air blowing device can be performed automatically.

(Function) When the opening of the main body of the device is opened and dirty medical instruments are loaded into the cleaning container, the cleaning tank is filled with cleaning water and the cleaning container is rotated by the driving means. The cleaning liquid flows inside the tank to wash away the dirt adhering to the medical instruments. After cleaning, the dirty cleaning liquid in the cleaning tank is drained, and hot air is blown from the hot air blowing device toward the cleaning container to clean the medical instruments. Once this is completed, the hot air supply is stopped, the driving means is stopped, and the opening of the device body is opened and the cleaned and sterilized medical instruments are removed from inside the cleaning container. Take it out and prepare it for next use.

(Example) Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

The main body 1 of the device is a horizontally long rectangular square box, as shown in Figures 2 and 3.
As shown in the figure, there are wheels 2, 2, etc. at the four corners of the lower surface, making it movable, and a frontage 3 is opened on the upper surface, and it is made freely nr11 by M4, and the equipment directly under this opening 3 A cleaning tank 5 is installed inside the main body 1.

This cleaning 4f! An overflow chamber 6 is attached to the negative side of the cleaning tank 5 in the longitudinal direction, and a weir plate 7 keeps the water level in the cleaning tank 5 constant, and a drain port 8 is provided at the bottom of the cleaning tank 5. The water can be drained through piping 9.

Inside the cleaning tank 5, there is a horizontally long cylindrical cleaning container 10.
is rotatably supported on the apparatus main body 1 side by a shaft 11.11. The cleaning container 10 is made of mesh material, punched metal, and other water-permeable materials, and has a storage chamber 12 inside for storing medical instruments, so that even when the cleaning container 10 is rotated, Appropriate partitions (not shown) are provided to prevent medical instruments from rattling inside.

The cleaning container 10 is rotated by a driving means installed in the main body 1 of the apparatus. In the illustrated embodiment, a belt (timing belt) 17 is wound between a boo 915 rotatably driven by a motor 13 via a clutch 14 and a boo 916 at one end of the shaft 11 of the cleaning container 10. The cleaning container 10 is rotated through the clutch 14 by the drive of the motor 13.

The cleaning liquid supply and drainage system includes a plurality of shower pipes 18 and 19 installed in the longitudinal direction above the cleaning tank 5, and
It has a pipe 20 for recovering the overflowing cleaning liquid in an overflow chamber 6 attached to the longitudinal direction and the side surface of the pipe, and a float switch 21 for detecting overflow is provided in the middle of this pipe 20.

For example, a tap water supply system 22 and a pure water supply system 23 are connected to the shower vibe IS, 19 as cleaning fluids through pipes (not shown), and are switched and supplied at appropriate times. Further, a tank 24 for collecting washed cleaning liquid is provided in one end in the longitudinal direction of the apparatus main body 1. This tank 24 and the lower part of the cleaning tank 5 are connected by a pipe (not shown), and the cleaning liquid is collected in this tank 24. The waste washing water can be recycled and reused.

A hot air blowing device 25 is installed in the lower part of the inside of the main body 1 of the device. This hot air blowing device 25 includes a blower 26,
For example, it is of a combination structure with a heater 27 of about 6 kW, and can blow hot air through an outlet (not shown) toward the medical instruments in the cleaning container 10 in the drained cleaning tank 5. .

In this embodiment, in order to improve the cleaning efficiency, an ultrasonic oscillator 28.28 is installed at the lower surface of the bottom of the cleaning tank 5, and by oscillating ultrasonic waves from this ultrasonic oscillator 28, 28, the interior of the cleaning tank 5 is The cleaning liquid is subjected to slight vibrations using ultrasonic waves, and the vibrations of the cleaning liquid are used to better clean the medical instruments in the cleaning container 10.

The flow of the operations of the above-mentioned parts is as shown in the display section 30 on the operation panel 29 in FIG.
1. “Cleaning with tap water” 32. “Cleaning with pure water” 33. “Drying”
34, “End” 35 and 1111i! Setting time display sections 37 and 38 for setting the time required for each operation corresponding to each display according to J36.
, 39, 40 are provided, and these display sections 37, 38, 3
9.40 are correspondingly provided with switches 41, 42, 43, 44. With these settings, each operation is performed for each predetermined set time according to the flow on the display section 30.

In addition, switches 45 for ultrasonic cleaning, 46 for rotating the cleaning container, 47 for draining, and 48 for switching between tap water and pure water supply are provided to manually perform each of the above operations individually or continuously. There is.

Next, the operation of the above embodiment will be explained.

Open the M4 of the apparatus main body 1 and store the used and dirty medical instruments in the cleaning container 10 in a stable state so that they do not move blindly.

In the case of automatic operation, "Detergent cleaning", "Water flushing", "
Time setting display section 3 for each time for "pure water cleaning" and "drying"
7 to 40 and turn on the power, the motor 13 of the driving means starts and the cleaning container 10 is rotated, and in the "detergent cleaning" process, the cleaning liquid containing detergent is sprayed into the nozzle 18.
．． From the time the detergent is supplied from detergent 19 until the set time has elapsed, the medical instruments in the cleaning container 10 are cleaned with the detergent, and ultrasonic cleaning is performed by the operation of the ultrasonic oscillator 28. Thereafter, the supply is switched to "tap water washing" and washing with tap water is performed, and then washing is performed with I [water washing] for the respective set times.

When the cleaning with the cleaning liquid is completed and the water in the cleaning tank 5 is drained and the cleaning container 10 is exposed to the atmosphere, the hot air blowing device 25 is activated and hot air is blown onto the medical instruments in the cleaning container 11510. The material is then dried with hot air and sterilized.

When all of these steps are completed, the message "Complete" is displayed and the driving means is stopped, so that the lid 4 of the device main body 1 can be opened and the cleaned medical instruments can be removed from the cleaning container 10 and immediately placed for inspection. Can be put to use.

Furthermore, by operating the ultrasonic oscillator 28° 28 during cleaning in the cleaning tank 5, ultrasonic vibrations are applied to the cleaning water in the cleaning tank 5, further enhancing the cleaning effect of medical instruments. .

〔Effect of the invention〕

As explained above, according to the present invention, by simply storing used medical instruments in a cleaning container, cleaning, drying with hot air, and disinfection of useful bacteria can be performed automatically without human intervention. Moreover, since it can be cleaned at high speed and manually, even large-scale medical institutions that need to carry a large number of medical instruments can quickly respond to tests, which in turn speeds up tests and results in test results. Early reporting is achieved, the test subject does not have to wait too long, and this has great effects, such as encouraging them to actively take the test.

Furthermore, if an ultrasonic oscillator is attached to the cleaning tank as in claim 2, the cleaning effect within the cleaning tank can be further enhanced, and cleaning can be performed with good layer efficiency. Further, as in the illustrated embodiment, each cleaning process can be performed automatically according to the operation flow of each part, so that there are various excellent effects such as the ability to use a fully automatic cleaning apparatus as a cleaning robot.

It should be noted that this invention is not limited to the illustrated embodiment, and it goes without saying that the structure of each part can be arbitrarily modified within the technical scope of this invention. This does not preclude use as a cleaning device.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Fig. 1 is a plan view showing an embodiment of the present invention, Fig. 2 is a longitudinal sectional view showing an embodiment of the invention, Fig. 3 is a transverse sectional view showing an embodiment of the invention, and Fig. 4 is a plan view showing an embodiment of the invention. FIG. 2 is a front view showing an example of an operation panel. DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1... Apparatus body, 3... Frontage part, 4... Lid, 5...
...Cleaning tank, 10...Cleaning container, 18.19...Shower pipe, 24...Hot air blowing device, 28...
Ultrasonic oscillator, 29...operation panel. Vines 3 Figure vines 4 eyes

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. A device body having an opening through which medical instruments can be put in and taken out, a cleaning tank provided within the device body, and a device rotatable about a horizontal axis within the cleaning tank. A cylindrical cleaning container for loading medical instruments that is supported and made of a water-permeable material, a driving means for applying rotational force to the cleaning container, and supplying and discharging a cleaning liquid such as tap water or pure water to and from the cleaning tank. and a hot air blowing device that blows hot air toward the cleaning container in the cleaning tank, so that the cleaning liquid supply and drainage, rotation of the cleaning container, and hot air supply by the hot air blowing device can be automatically performed. An automatic cleaning device for medical instruments characterized by: 2. The automatic cleaning device for medical instruments according to claim 1, further comprising an ultrasonic oscillator installed at the bottom of the cleaning tank to apply ultrasonic vibrations to the cleaning liquid in the cleaning tank.