First projects in Belgium and Switzerland

A central sterile supply department (CSSD) as a mobile unit for hospitals to rent is now available from Miele Professional for worldwide deployment. For the first time, this large pre-fabricated and modular building covering an area of 68 m² was installed on the car park of the regional 'Sacred Heart' hospital in the Belgian town of Tienen between early August and mid-October. These temporary facilities guaranteed the same standards of reliability and speed in reprocessing surgical instruments as the ones they replaced during refurbishment work at the hospital's CSSD. 

'As the prime mover in the market, we are offering our clients a temporary three-room setup for reprocessing sterile supplies with separate areas for washing and disinfection, packaging and sterile supplies', explains Andreas Barduna, Managing Director of Miele's Professional division. The individual rooms in the CSSD in Tienen are prefab units but were equipped individually to reflect the needs and wishes of the hospital's management. Machines included two large-chamber disinfectors, each with a capacity of 18 DIN mesh trays per cycle (PG 8528), and a large steam steriliser for 8 sterile supply units (PS 5662v).

The project partner for the installation of these prefab units and for the equipment they contain is the Dutch Jan Snel company which has many years' of successful experience to its name in giving healthcare facilities a modular, temporary home. On request, each mobile CSSD can even be extended and equipped with twice as many machines. Hospitals must merely provide water and electricity supplies to the temporary facilities.

'A perfect solution', says Leon Jackers, manager of the hospital apothecary and responsible for sterile supplies in Tienen: 'Throughout the world, hospitals faced with having to renovate existing CSSD facilities are up against the same problem as we were. Hospitals can rarely find another stop-gap location on their own premises which is suitable for providing sterile supplies.' The only other alternative for the Sacred Heart Hospital would have been to work with a third-party service provider some 100 kilometres away. In order to avoid bottlenecks in the provision of sterile supplies, this however would have meant investing in additional instruments to compensate for longer turnaround times.

Jackers was 'extremely pleased' with the solution Miele proposed as it did not involve any interruption to supplies and worked smoothly. After relocating back to the new premises, members of staff were already highly familiar with many aspects of their work as the new CSSD was also fitted with medical technology from Miele Professional.

And the modular construction which occupied part of the car park in Tienen is now destined to rise to new challenges. Once dismantled, the mobile CSSD was overhauled and rented out afresh: By the end of the year, it will be in the service of a hospital in Switzerland.

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Company profile: Miele is the world's leading manufacturer of premium domestic appliances including cooking, baking and steam-cooking appliances, refrigeration products, coffee makers, dishwashers and laundry and floor care products. This line-up is augmented by dishwashers, washer-extractors and tumble dryers for commercial use as well as washer-disinfectors and sterilisers for use in medical and laboratory applications (Miele Professional). The Miele company, founded in 1899, has 8 production plants in Germany as well as one plant each in Austria, the Czech Republic, China and Romania. 2014/15 turnover amounted to approx. EUR 3.49 bn with sales outside Germany accounting for around 70%. Miele is represented with its own sales subsidiaries and via importers in almost 100 countries. The Miele company, now in the fourth generation of family ownership, employs a workforce of around 17,740, 10,350 thereof in Germany. The company headquarters are located in Gütersloh/Westphalia, Germany.