What is Aseptic Technique and Why Do We Use It?

For all of our Patients on any type of home infusion treatment, your home infusion intravenous (IV) medication is uniquely compounded by our highly trained and licensed Pharmacists and Pharmacy Technicians. In our pharmacy, we have a "clean room" which is the sterile compounding area. We use aseptic technique to prepare everything in our clean room. "Aseptic technique is the technique and procedures designed to prevent contamination of drugs, packaging, equipment, or supplies by microorganisms during preparation." Every Pharmacist and Pharmacy Technician who enters our clean room to mix and compound medications is not only IV certified, but they have also gone through our internal training process and have shown they have mastered the aseptic technique. Following proper protocols is extremely important to reduce risks of infection in the Patient. This includes maintaining the sterile compounding area with sterilized equipment and supplies and mastering the skills to properly use a laminar airflow hood. The laminar airflow hood is a work area where the products are compounded and layers of aseptic air prevent the entry of contaminated room air. Some of the elements that are used in aseptic technique are-

Barriers

• Examples- masks, sterile gloves, and sterile gowns

Contact Guidelines

• Example- If a sterile scalpel falls on the floor, it becomes non-sterile because it came in contact with the non-sterile floor.

Tool Preparation

• Example- Any tools that are used must be sterilized or packaged in sterile environments.

Environmental Controls

• Example- We can control the local environment by compounding in the sterile clean room.

We follow all quality standards outlined by the USP <797> which provides the minimum practice and quality standards for compounded sterile preparations of drugs and nutrients. For every Pharmacist and/or Pharmacy Technician that enters the clean room, there are certain protocols they must follow to ensure the area is free of microorganisms, bacteria, dust, etc. There are many more protocols that we follow, but these are just a few examples-

• Proper gowning and aseptic technique must always be used in the clean room.

• The hood in the clean room will be sanitized every morning.

• Gloves need to be routinely sanitized after touching items outside of the work area.

• Needles are only opened within the hood to maintain sterility and no part of the needle should be touched.

• Before use, all interior working surfaces of the laminar flow workbench should be cleaned with 70% isopropyl alcohol or other appropriate disinfecting agent and a clean, lint-free cloth.

Aseptic technique is incredibly important to prevent the risk of infection and contamination in the IV medications and supplies used by Patients. Our Compliance Officer ensures that all Pharmacists and Pharmacy Technicians use aseptic technique and will routinely monitor and evaluate each employee in the clean room. We follow all regulations and protocols as guided by the Texas State Board of Pharmacy, USP, and we have compiled our own Policy & Procedure Manual that each employee in the Pharmacy abides by. As Patients of Landmark Infusion, you can be assured that all of our home infusion products we produce are compounded in our state of the art clean room and each employee is trained and continuously evaluated in our aseptic and safety protocols.