It does not matter, stains are always an issue. At home, as one of our stories from last week pointed out, stains are always a concern and we should take care of them as soon as possible. If we don't, they can cause more issues. Ray Taurasi, in his CS Solution article, talked about stains appearing on packaging and what could be the causes.  

This past week I was at a medical facility and they were using a "silver probe" and were concerned about how bad the probe looked. We went and found the IFU for the product and both had a learning experience. The IFU stated silver or silver plated products that become tarnished could be cleaned a few ways. One way was to use simmering water, some sodium bicarbonate and aluminum foil. They went on in more detail about what to do and at the end stated to rinse the item with  distilled water to remove residual cleaning solution.

What I learned from this simple exercise is that, again, rinsing with the purest of water at the end of a cleaning process is so important. Sometimes we forget that missing this last step of rinsing, or if not done properly, could have some very serious outcomes. It made me think of the issue with eye instruments and TASS and how important rinsing is in preventing something very serious from happening to a patient.

So when you have a stain, and you are cleaning and removing  that stain, remember that your process is not done until you rinse thoroughly and completely.