Your Complete Guide for Choosing a Flexible Endoscope

Given their many uses, it’s important for healthcare facilities to have endoscopes. However, this raises several additional questions. For example, what type of endoscope do you want/need? No single endoscope can be used for everything, so hospitals need to purchase more than one to cover multiple applications. You also have the option of buying new or used, or even used and refurbished—which one do you prefer? 

There are a lot of considerations that go into buying a flexible endoscope, some of the most important of which are covered here:

The first thing to consider is the type of endoscope. Endoscopes have many uses and purposes that include examining the esophagus, stomach or the first part of the small intestine with an gastroscope (gastroscopy), investigating the inside of the bladder with a cystoscope that passes into the bladder through the urethra (cystoscopy), or examining the bowel with an colonoscope that is placed into the back passage with air being blown into the large bowel to get a clearer view (colonoscopy). You need endoscopes that fit your purposes. For the most part, this will depend on which cases you deal with the most.

Regarding flexible endoscopes, you will likely have to choose between gastroscopes that have four-way tip deflection of at least 180° in one direction, and bronchoscopes with two-way tip deflection of at least 100° in each direction, and 180° in one direction. You also have to choose between fiber optic and video endoscopes. While fiber optic endoscopes transmit images through a bundle of fibers to the eyepiece or an attached camera, a video endoscope has no eyepiece and instead transmits the image electronically from a video chip at the tip of the insertion tube directly to a video monitor. Because the former leads to semi-pixelated images and the latter to superior ones through an onboard system, video endoscopes will end up costing you more overall.

Once you know which type of endoscope you need, you have to decide whether to buy it new or used. As you might expect, new comes with more guarantees, warranties, and servicing in case something goes wrong, but used comes with a smaller price tag and the potential for a like-new quality if it has been refurbished to its original equipment manufacturer’s standards for performance. When it comes time to make a decision, you’ll have to weigh each option’s advantages and disadvantages against what you’re looking for from an endoscope.

You can buy flexible endoscopes from many suppliers. If you’re looking for a new instrument, you can look for the manufacturer’s themselves and resellers like Surgical Solutions. These will be the most expensive instruments, but will likely come with reputable brands you can turn to if you need any spare parts or a replacement. Second hand equipment, on the other hand, can be purchased from a wider number of vendors like hospitals or even through online auctions like eBay, but comes with the drawback that you have no real way of knowing the endoscope you purchased will serve you well without some sort of warranty or coverage. For the best results, opt for refurbished endoscopes that come with their own coverage plans.

Flexible endoscope ownership doesn’t end with a purchase. Rather, to make it last as long as possible and deliver as much added value as it can, you have to properly care for and maintain it. This is especially true when you consider the many parts of an endoscope: insertion tubes, lenses, port covers and more delicate parts that require careful handling. Apart from ensuring an always-functioning endoscopy scope, proper upkeep also gives doctors the confidence that comes from working with tip-top instruments, and patients the peace of mind that comes from a confident doctor.

In five steps, here’s how to properly care for and maintain a flexible endoscope.

Appropriate flexible endoscope maintenance begins with education. If your staff is expected to properly take care of an endoscope, they must know how to do it. Of note, your staff has to know how to handle expensive and fragile devices while following all infection control principles.

An easy first step to ensure your staff is well educated is to require certification from anyone who is expected to handle an endoscope. In doing so, you’ll know for a fact that only those who have been trained to use an endoscope are doing so. You can also take the next step and offer/require a once-a-year refresher course to ensure your staff’s knowledge is always up-to-date.

Endoscope reprocessing is the act of cleaning and sanitizing an endoscope after every use so it can be reused in surgery. By aggressively cleaning the instrument and its parts with disinfecting agents, and then sanitizing them to kill all remaining microorganisms and bacteria, you will not only prevent contamination in the operating room, but also increase its lifespan by ensuring that no body fluids are left on the endoscope, which can stain, erode and rapidly deteriorate it.

An important part of endoscope maintenance is inspection and testing immediately following endoscope reprocessing to ensure that everything has been properly cleaned, sanitized, decontaminated, and remains in perfect working order. After a visual inspection for things like cleanliness, corrosion, missing parts, loose set pins, and proper alignment, conduct leak testing to make sure that no damage has been done to the endoscope.

Given their delicate nature, endoscope handling and transportation requires utmost care to minimize the potential for damage and lower the chances of contamination. For example, always cover an endoscope’s lenses and cover glasses, which are susceptible to damage from impact or excessive pressure, never stack them anywhere as they wait to be reprocessed, as this can lead to compression or puncture damage, and always remove any accessories so all internal channels can aerate and dry.

Proper storage minimizes damage and prevents cross-contamination. For instance, storing endoscopes fully extended (one-per hangar) in a dry and fully ventilated environment prevents deformation and ensures that there’s no moisture left to promote bacterial growth, which can lead to nosocomial infections.

With regards to repair, even if you’ve been doing everything right with endoscope care and maintenance, daily wear and tear will eventually lead to damage that needs to be fixed for a fully-functioning device. Keep in mind that this doesn’t have to happen exclusively when an instrument is in need of repair, but can actually take place beforehand in the form of refurbishing. You can send any flexible endoscope that needs a check up to organizations like Surgical Solutions, who provide mission-critical services to healthcare facilities.

Like most healthcare purchases, buying a flexible endoscope is expensive and needs to be approached with care. This includes deciding the type of endoscope you need and also the quality you’re willing to pay for. After you make a purchase, proper care and maintenance will then take over to ensure that the endoscope lasts as long as it can.

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