So you may be wondering what we're talking about when we suggest to take "time" into consideration when you're figuring out which is the best AER for you to buy for your practice.

Well "time" is a valuable commodity and it has to be considered when choosing an AER. Manufacturers do outline the typical cycle times for their respective AERs but what about the time spent, or saved, with other aspects of the device or its consumables. It might be a good idea to put together a spread sheet for this consideration as we'll just go over a couple items to think about but there are many more that you could add to the list to come up with an accurate savings comparison.

Let's talk about disinfectants first as they are one of the consumables you should consider. Some AERs require specific disinfectants. As shared in a prior article, disinfectants can affect the overall reprocessing time, amount of energy used and the overall efficacy. For instance, a disinfectant that is designed to be used at room temperature can often save on energy use as it won't require the AER to pre-heat the disinfectant before use. While this additional energy cost may be minimal, the extra time it takes is not. As the saying goes "time is money" and if you can save on the overall reprocessing time you've made money. While saving 3-5 minutes may not sound like a lot, it's important that you figure out how much money your business generates per average minute so you can accurately compare AERs.

If you're doing just 6 procedures per day that could equated to 30 minutes per day. And with 252 working days per year that equates to 7,560 minutes per year (126 hours). And then extrapolate 126 hours over the number of years you believe the machine will be in service. I think you get the point.

Another important factor related to the disinfectants is how much contact time they require. Some disinfectants require a shorter contact time with the scopes you're disinfecting. This in turn can speed up the turnaround time adding to the massive time savings discussed above. But it's also important to consider the disinfectant's microbial efficacy making sure it kills the full spectrum of microorganisms necessary of course.

While we've only gone over a couple of items that can save time I'm sure you've already thought of others to add to the spreadsheet. You'll need to compare each AER you're considering as each may have different requirements.

The bottom line is that "Time Saved" must be taken into consideration when comparing the overall cost/savings to figure out the best AER (automated endoscopic reprocessor) for you to buy.