Spotlight ON TECHNOLOGY & TECHNIQUE

Surgical Blades That Speed Turnaround

By Samantha Stahl, Assistant Editor

In a busy operating room, there are a lot of opportunities for slow-ups throughout a surgical day—machine glitches, scheduling jams, inefficient pre-op routines. A frequent complaint is sluggish turnaround times for instrument sanitization. While disposable blades of the past left something to be desired, Oasis Surgical's extensive repertoire of knives, both in their Feather Edge line and recently debuted PremierEdge collection, offer safety and efficiency for a wide range of surgical situations.

Downtime Reduction

A few years back, Richard Castillo, DO, of Tulsa, Okla., was using diamond knives for his cataract surgery. While the blades made great incisions that were smooth and watertight, his operating room was having issues with the care and upkeep. He decided to switch over to disposables in the hopes that they would remedy the problem. The Oasis Feather Edge blades did just the trick.

“We had good luck with them. I couldn't even tell the difference between the disposable blades and the ones that I used to have,” he says. Since then, his OR has switched over to the newer PremierEdge line.

“Nowadays, you can do cataract surgery in 10 minutes, so you don't want to wait around for instruments,” he adds. Some smaller hospitals that have a decent amount of turnover may run into trouble with reusable knives because of the tender love and care they require. “If you don't have people who can properly clean and sterilize instruments, you'll have a problem.”

Slowing down patient flow to wait for instruments to finish sterilizing is obviously not optimal for OR efficiency. The other option—inventorying a full day of knives—is expensive. Disposables manage to solve both problems by being cost effective and quick.

A “Tray for Day” sterilization tray from Oasis holds five knives for a full day's surgeries.

Quality Assurance

When scleral tunnels were the norm, Dr. Castillo says that the technique was a little more tolerant of a dull knife. Now he uses clear corneal incisions that make it critical to have a top quality instrument. “When going through the cornea, you need a very sharp blade because the incision isn't as forgiving. You might not get a good seal at the end and wind up with a leak.” He uses the 2.75 mm clear cornea knife primarily for his procedures as well as a 1.0 mm side port blade.

The PremierEdge line also includes safety stab, MVR, thin line slit and crescent tunnel knives in a full range of sizes. All handles are ridged for a non-slip grip. The Feather knives, which are also designed for repeated use, can be resterilized. The “Tray for Day” sterilization tray can hold five scalpels, offering a full day of surgeries when handled properly.

Dr. Castillo says that one of the greatest benefits of using Oasis's instrumentation is the company's quality control. “We have never opened up a new blade that wasn't ready to go. We have tried other brands and found that there would be a dull knife in the pack and we would have to swap it out in the middle of the case.” It's crucial to find a brand that takes quality control seriously, he says, so that there is consistency from case to case. The Oasis knives efficiently fit the bill. OM

For more information, visit www.oasismedical.com.