Eyeworld

UPDATE 13 by Natalie Zundel ASCRS Foundation Development Director 4. Shawn Lin, MD, UCLA Stein Eye Institute 5. Katy Liu, MD, Duke Eye Center 6. James Lockwood, MD, Emory University 7. Jeffrey Ma, MD, Northwestern University 8. Jacob Rullo, MD, Queen's Uni- versity Ophthalmology 9. Nakul Shekhawat, MD, Uni- versity of Michigan, Kellogg Eye Center 10. Swarup Swaminathan, MD, Bascom Palmer Eye Institute The ASCRS Foundation also award- ed more than $750,000 in research T hrough the Resident Excellence Awards, the ASCRS Foundation provides travel grants to enable 10 outstanding ophthalmic residents to attend the ASCRS•ASOA Annual Meeting. The categories for consideration include research, patient care, leadership, and educa- tion. Congratulations to the selected 2018 winners. 1. Jonathan Chou, MD, Massa- chusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary 2. Thomas Johnson, MD, Johns Hopkins Wilmer Eye Institute 3. Michele Lee, MD, Stanford University Medical Center Announcing the 2018 Resident Excellence Awards and research grants Insightful news from the ASCRS Foundation grants to fund pioneering studies and new treatment options. The Foundation is committed to foster- ing innovation in all areas of eye disease and treatment, and the re- search grant program is a fitting way to carry on the spirit of the young, enterprising ophthalmologists who founded ASCRS. The young ophthalmologists to receive a 2018 research grant are: 1. Keri Allen, MD, "Safety and Efficacy of Cataract Surgery in Urban and Rural Ethiopia" 2. Igor Bussel MD, "Bent Ab-Inter- no Needle Goniectomy (BANG) Clinical Trial: A Micro-Invasive Glaucoma Surgery Option For the Developing World" 3. Kara Cavuoto, MD, "Impact of Infectious Bacterial Keratitis on the Ocular Surface Microbiome" 4. Joshua Ehrlich, MD, "The Impact of Social Isolation on Receipt of Cataract Surgery in Older Adults" 5. Natasha Nayak Kolomeyer, MD, "Refractive and Visual Outcomes of Minimally Inva- sive and Traditional Filtering Glaucoma Surgeries" 6. Melina Morkin, MD, "Neuro- pathic Corneal Pain: Review of Patient Characteristics, Diagnos- tics, and Management" 7. Lara Newman, MD, "Poly- merase Chain Reaction for Rapid Detection of Fungal Con- taminants in Corneal Donor Tissue: A Proof of Concept and Feasibility Study" 8. Vito Romano, MD, "Cornea Dome Lens" 9. Bryan Roth, MD, "Effect of Scleral Contact Lens on Dry Eye and Associated Biomarkers" 10. Soshian Sarrafpour, MD, "Ran- domized Clinical Trial Assessing the Effects of Blue-Light Filter- ing Glasses on Ocular Perfor- mance, Cornea/Macular Health, and the Sleep-Wake Cycle" EW Contact information Zundel: nzundel@ascrs.org by David F. Chang, MD Multi-society task force releases specialty- specific guidelines for ophthalmic instrument cleaning and sterilization N ew specialty-specific guidelines for the sterile processing of ophthalmic surgical instruments are being jointly released by the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery (ASCRS), the American Academy of Ophthalmol- ogy (AAO), and the Outpatient Oph- thalmic Surgery Society (OOSS). The result of a 3-year collaboration, this document makes evidence-based recommendations regarding issues that may be unique to the clean- ing and sterilization of intraocular instrumentation. During the past decade, ambu- latory surgery centers (ASCs) have come under increased regulatory scrutiny, including ongoing and unannounced Medicare surveys. Despite remarkably low endoph- thalmitis rates with cataract surgery, several longstanding practices for processing eye instrumentation have been cited by surveyors as deficien- cies that would warrant loss of ASC licensure or coverage. In 2008, The Joint Commis- sion began requiring a full terminal wrapped and dry cycle for all eye instruments, including those to be used immediately on a consecutive case. Because of cataract surgery's high volume and rapid operating room turnover, any new regula- tions requiring full 1-hour, wrapped terminal sterilization cycles for ophthalmic instruments would have dire practical and economic consequences for our profession. A joint effort by ASCRS and AAO convinced The Joint Commission to modify this requirement on the ba- sis that broad general surgery guide- lines were not necessarily appropri- ate for the cleaning and sterilization of ophthalmic instruments. A new challenge came in the form of a Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) November 2014 ruling that immediate use steam sterilization (IUSS) could not be performed routinely for any type of surgery. Some CMS surveyors considered typical short sterilization cycles for cataract instruments to be IUSS, creating an overnight crisis for ASCs performing anterior segment surgery. The Ophthalmic Instrument Cleaning & Sterilization (OICS) Task Force was established with representatives from ASCRS, AAO, and OOSS to address this important issue. As holdovers from the 2008 ASCRS/AAO instrument sterilization committee, Nick Mamalis, MD, and I have co-chaired this task force. The other OICS Task Force members are: Robert Cionni, MD, Richard Hoff- man, MD, Francis Mah, MD, Neal Shorstein, MD, Nancey McCann, director of government relations, and Joyce D'Andrea, COMT, direc- tor of allied health education, from ASCRS; Michael Repka, MD, Flora Lum, MD, and Cherie McNett, director of health policy, from AAO; continued on page 14

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