ETA Chapter Report

Print this Article | Send to Colleague

YEAR IN REVIEW

The Eta Chapter held 3 meetings after last year’s conference and newly appointed Executive group. The chapter closed the 2010/11 year with 82 members and encourages all Eta chapter CS workers to renew and encourage your colleagues to also join and attend chapter and provincial activities. 79 students successfully completed the Classroom course last October and another 59 this past March.

The ETA Chapter held a meeting on Tuesday, October 5, 2010 that was hosted by GS Medical Packaging in Mississauga. Although it was a rainy evening, the turnout was very good and the program was interesting and educational. Thanks to John and Peter and their staff for providing the facilities to host our meeting. We all learned a lot about what goes into the production and quality monitoring of self sealing pouches and rolls. During the facility tour, members had a chance to ask questions and learn about the history of GS Medical Packaging and its future products. At the same time, their group looked to our members during the post-tour discussion for input as to what we would like and expect in hospital Sterile-Peel packaging.

During the chapter portion of the meeting, this year's annual conference was discussed, our past year's chapter meetings and minutes were reviewed and the new executive was introduced.

The ETA Chapter held another meeting on Tuesday, December 14, 2010 that combined the traditional Christmas dinner and Chapter meeting.  The chosen venue was once again the Mandarin Restaurant. The turnout was very good (28 members) despite some snow and very cold weather. It was a great opportunity to share chapter news, CSAO updates and network with our colleagues before the holiday season.

Topics discussed were:

Feedback from last year's annual CSAO conference - Sept 2010
Planning and themes for next year's annual conference
Reminder that next year will see voting on constitutional amendments
Potential dates and locations for next Chapter meeting

On Wednesday, March 23, 2011 5:30pm at Mount Sinai Hospital another Eta Chapter meeting was held. Michael Lacatus, ETA Chapter President, welcomed all members and thanked Mount Sinai Hospital for hosting the meeting. Michael also acknowledged Chris Collins from 3M who provided snacks and refreshments for the attendees.

On behalf of 3M, Nathalie St-Amour presented to the group their new ATP bioluminescence technology that validates the cleanliness of various surfaces. The slideshow presentation showed how the Clean-Trace system’s hardware and software functions, as well as the benefits over the use of visual assessment & microbiological tests in regards to time, simplicity, and sanitary detection. Using the ATP swabs, the Clean-Trace system indicates the presence of biological residues within 10 seconds, as opposed to day-long incubations and laboratory tests.

Annual Conference Update:
Michael Lacatus discussed changes in the format of the conference, which will include workshops regarding Flexible Scopes and PPE & hand washing. Michael also mentioned that this is the year of constitutional and by-law changes.
The Annual CSAO conference is scheduled for September 13th & 14th, 2011.