Yes. Sterile processing water quality is no longer a utility issue. With ANSI/AAMI ST108, hospitals are being asked to actively manage, monitor, document, and act on water quality as part of patient safety, instrument care, and compliance. For years, water quality in sterile processing was something everyone knew mattered, but few organizations truly owned from end to end. It often lived somewhere between SPD, Facilities, Infection Prevention, Quality, vendors, equipment manufacturers, and the practical limits of aging infrastructure. The latest standards conversation changes that. As highlighted in Healthcare Purchasing News, the sterile processing standards discussion has shifted from awareness to execution, with updated expectations now being tested in daily workflows and accreditation surveys.
Shawn Flynn says that “Water is the medium for cleaning chemistry, the final contact point before sterilization, and a direct contributor to instrument and equipment outcomes,” said Flynn. “When water quality drifts, we see it immediately – inconsistent cleaning results, staining and residue, corrosion, wet loads, failed indicators.”
The impact extends beyond instruments to the equipment itself.
“Poor water quality accelerates scale buildup, corrodes components, and increases stress on washers, ultrasonics, steam sterilizers, and associated plumbing,” Flynn continued.
That shift is especially clear in ANSI/AAMI ST108:2023, Water for the Processing of Medical Devices. The article describes ST108 as elevating water quality from a background consideration to a defined, measurable component of sterile processing performance. In other words, water is no longer “just what comes out of the wall.” It is a process input that affects cleaning, disinfection, sterilization, equipment performance, instrument condition, documentation, and ultimately patient safety.
This aligns with what Len Sparks continues to hear from customers: most facilities do not discover water risk in a standards committee meeting. They discover it in the department. It shows up as staining, residue, corrosion, wet loads, failed indicators, repeated service calls, instrument complaints, or a surveyor asking a simple but difficult question: “Who owns your water quality program?”
That is why ST108 should not be treated as a narrow equipment conversation. The article makes an important point: a common misconception is that ST108 is simply about installing a reverse osmosis system. Infrastructure matters, but governance matters more. ST108 pushes organizations to define ownership, monitor performance, trend results, and take action when parameters fall outside established limits.
For healthcare leaders, the better question is not only, “Do we have water treatment?” The better questions are:
- Who is responsible for water quality?
- What are we measuring?
- How often are results reviewed?
- What trends are developing?
- What happens when results drift?
- Can we show the documentation?
- Do SPD, Facilities, Infection Prevention, Quality, and Administration all understand their role?
AAMI describes ST108 as a benchmark that establishes clear water quality parameters and identifies contaminants, such as silica, that can accelerate equipment wear, compromise device functionality, and shorten the life of critical devices. That matters because poor water quality is not just a compliance concern. It can become an operational cost, a service burden, an instrument-life issue, and a risk-management problem.
Len’s customer insight is useful here because it keeps the conversation grounded. Customers generally want to do the right thing, but they are working inside real-world constraints: legacy plumbing, old washers, budget cycles, renovation timelines, staffing pressure, competing IFUs, and limited internal visibility into water data. In that environment, “perfect compliance tomorrow” may not be realistic. But unmanaged uncertainty is no longer acceptable.
That is where the article’s discussion of deviations becomes so relevant. It acknowledges that deviations happen because of facility design constraints, IFU conflicts, supply disruptions, staffing shortages, and other realities. The key difference is whether a facility has a structured, documented, risk-based plan. Surveyors are not simply looking for perfection; they are looking for awareness, oversight, and accountability.
This is the new water quality conversation. It moves water out of the “facilities-only” bucket and into a shared clinical operations model.
- SPD needs visibility because water directly affects cleaning outcomes.
- Facilities needs involvement because infrastructure drives performance.
- Infection Prevention and Quality need confidence because water quality can influence patient safety and compliance.
- Administration needs a roadmap because sustainable improvement requires funding, prioritization, documentation, and follow-through.
For organizations like VERDA, this is also where the opportunity becomes clear. A water quality program is not a one-time test, a single filter, or a new piece of equipment. Those may be part of the answer, but they are not the whole answer. A mature program starts with assessment, maps the system, defines critical control points, establishes monitoring expectations, trends results, documents exceptions, and creates escalation paths before a surveyor, failed process, or equipment issue turns water into an urgent problem.
The most important takeaway from the current standards landscape is this: water quality is now part of the evidence trail. It must be managed, measured, trended, and explained. Facilities that can show how they understand their risks, how they monitor their systems, and how they respond when conditions drift will be better positioned to protect patients, preserve equipment, support sterile processing teams, and defend their compliance posture.
The article closes with a broader principle: patient safety is built through dependable systems working together. Water quality is one of those systems. The organizations that treat it that way will be better prepared for the next survey, the next standard update, and the daily realities of sterile processing.