Patent ID: 8816856

Claim:
A method of monitoring a status of a medical instrument, the method comprising: receiving, using an input peripheral associated with a computer terminal, a code associated with the medical instrument to be subjected to a cleaning operation after a previous use of the medical instrument; receiving a predetermined length of time that the medical instrument is to be exposed to a cleaning agent before the cleaning operation can be considered complete; initiating a timer for monitoring a duration of the cleaning operation; receiving an indication that the medical instrument has been removed from the cleaning agent before the predetermined length of time expires based on the timer; in response to said receiving the indication, causing an electronic record that is associated with the medical instrument and is linked to the code to reflect that the medical instrument has not completed the cleaning operation; in response to completion of the cleaning operation determined based on the timer, updating a status of the medical instrument in the electronic record associated with the medial instrument stored in a non-transitory computer-readable medium to indicate that the medical instrument has been cleaned; and issuing an indication that the cleaning operation being performed on the medical instrument is complete.