The single-use device reprocessing and remanufacturing market is an estimated $200+ million business and growing fast thanks to cost containment pressures and the waning of early controversy surrounding the practice. By nearly any measure--including the number of facilities, number of approved products, and dollars both spent and saved--the SUD reprocessing industry is making a noteworthy impact on health care delivery in the US.
by Curt Werner
Up until the early 1990s, seemingly a lifetime ago, it wasn't unusual to see nurses and doctors casually throw away items labeled for single-use after using that product to treat a patient. Opened, but unused devices met the same fate, scrapped with little or no regard for the price the facility paid for it or whether it might retain any further use