Certification or Licensure That Is The Question 

This past week we posted an article that talked about an issue near and dear to many of our readers who work in the C.S.S.D field, it is called certification and licensing of a profession. What was different is that the talk was centered on biomedical professionals. It was refreshing in a way to read how mandatory certification or licensure is also a topic of concern for other healthcare professions. Many of the comments were the same, I felt I could have just replaced Biomed with CSSD in many of the comments.

What this article did for me is reinforce my "gut feeling" on this issue that it will take a grass root effort of all parties to move forward this debate to actual action. This will require lots of volunteers at the grass root level. Without a true bottom-up effort, these changes will continue to be implemented very slowly.

We all know that volunteering is a commitment and many organizations are hurting because people are not volunteering at the rate they used to. If you have been thinking about volunteering for a cause within these professions now might be the time to help take up the banner and push for what you believe in is the direction your profession should pursue certification or licensure.

The choice is really up to you.

Steve Kovach

Healthmark Industries

Concerning CSSD certifications go to these links for more information.

IAHCSMM :http://www.iahcsmm.org/GovernmentAffairs/CertificationIssue.html#pab1_4

CBSPD :http://www.sterileprocessing.org/about_cbspd.htm#a5