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May 27, 2009, FCSA Meeting with Florida House of Representatives, Rep. John Legg
Every patient deserves to have a certified Central Service technician reprocessing their instruments. This was the battle call that we are using to get our point across to the key legislative constituents in the State of Florida.
I met with Rep. John Legg for more than an hour-and-a-half. I educated him on the role or sterile processing and how important our profession is to a patient or a love one in the hospital. He was amazed that we have no state-mandated certification. We provided the information we need in Florida and also the New Jersey’s template, along with the actions of the New York State group. We also gave him a copy of IAHCSMM’s DVD Central Service: Instrumental to Patient Care.
We discussed the problems the VA hospitals are having in our state, but we also told about problems that have not made it to the newspapers. We also informed Rep. Legg that tanning salons and tattoo parlors in the state must have licensing or certification, but that those who handle instrumentation and or medical equipment have no such requirements.
Rep. John Legg has stated that he will be our champion for our cause of mandatory certification. He is going to take our request to the State Health meeting in a few weeks to see what the State of Florida needs to do to move forward with this goal. He indicated that he will request that this is put on the first item of business for this meeting, and he also hopes to have a first draft of the bill available for review.
We in the State of Florida are very excited and looking forward to the next step to achieved our end results. This will raise the bar for patient safety, a goal that we all want to attain.
Lori Patterson CRCST, CHL, CIS, Fel President of the State of Florida Central Service Association IAHCSMM