Current status of water management for terminal rinsing of digestive endoscope in 104 medical institutions in Fujian Province

OBJECTIVE To investigate the current status of water management for terminal rinsing of digestive endoscope in medical institutions in Fujian Province, and to provide reference for improving regional quality control standards.

METHODS An electronic questionnaire survey was conducted from Jul. 2024 to Aug. 2024 through convenient sampling in secondary and above hospitals of 9 prefecture-level cities in Fujian Province. The survey covered topics such as water treatment system configuration, maintenance and water quality monitoring.

RESULTS A total of 108 questionnaires were distributed and 104 valid questionnaires were collected, with an effective response rate of 96.30%. The survey revealed that 78.85% (82/104) of the hospitals adopted separate water supply for each department, and 82.69% used purified water for terminal rinsing. Only 19.23% installed the final filter membrane at the water outlet. In addition, 66.35% of the hospitals did not specify the service life of the water supply pipeline, and the pipeline disinfection implementation rate was 60.58%, but 31.75% of them had irregular disinfection frequencies, with chlorine-based disinfectants (50.79%) and peracetic acid (34.92%) being the main disinfectants. The regular conductivity monitoring rate was 47.12%, and the microbial monitoring coverage rate reached 90.38%, with the monitoring frequency mainly being once every quarter (60.64%), but only 20.21% used R2A medium, and 12.77% adopted the membrane filtration method for inoculation. Tertiary hospitals were superior to secondary hospitals in terms of film membrane pore size pass rate (87.50% vs. 56.86%), pipeline disinfection implementation rate (71.43% vs. 50.91%) and advanced detection method application (P < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS There are issues in the management of water used for terminal rinsing of digestive endoscopes in Fujian Province, including non-standard equipment maintenance, inconsistent monitoring methods and insufficient awareness among management personnel. It is recommended to enhance management quality by optimizing the water treatment system setup, establishing standardized monitoring procedures and strengthening professional training for personnel.