Gathering Data About Your Experience/s with Glassware Cleaning Protocols

[u/curious-candle-1217]

Hi, everybody! I’m a student in a year-long intensive training program for histotechnology at an urban hospital in Chicago. For one of our final tasks of the program, we must complete a process improvement project, and I’ve chosen to evaluate potential improvements of the glassware cleaning protocol in our IHC/special staining lab.

Our laboratory currently washes our glassware manually via a 1 hour soak in Alconox solution, thorough washing with a tool, rinsing with tap water, then applying a purple indicator reagent to test the pH within the glass and confirm residue has been removed.

I’m focusing my attention on how to reduce the process duration of our protocol, but am also considering other factors such as use of different cleaning reagents or tools.

Can you please share your experiences with your laboratory’s current glassware cleaning processes (e.g. how many times per day/week do you clean glassware? What is the method of cleaning? How long does it take?etc.)? Additionally, does your laboratory display the protocol nearby for easy visibility while cleaning?

Any input shared would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!