Single use versus limited use medical connectors

ODU has published a new downloadable technical white paper on the question of single-use and limited-use medical connectors. Equipment employed in hospitals and at emergency sites must be extremely reliable and as close to sterile as possible, and a patient’s life may depend on it.

Until recently, the cables and connectors had to fall into one of two categories – disposable or reusable. Initially, single-use, disposable assemblies may deliver a better solution because they pose no contamination risk and have lower up-front costs.

To be reusable, they must be sterilisable and autoclavable between uses and capable of many thousands of mating cycles – substantially more expensive. While some applications in which single use can be suitable, some disposable connectors can be low quality, unreliable and environmentally unfriendly. The company provides options for these issues as listed below.

ODU Medi-Snap are high-quality connectors with up to 5,000 mating cycles that can be sterilised up to 200 times. Merging the best attributes of lower initial cost but developed with the option for single-use or sterilised for repeated usage, all within reasonable price points.

ODU Mini-Med is a complete family of pre-terminated cable assemblies designed to reduce overall costs but rated at over 1,000 mating cycles. Considered as either disposable or reusable and, in the latter case, sterilisable between uses, employing the Ethylene Oxide gas sterilisation method.