Tray assembly

The purpose of tray assembly is to assemble trays of surgical instruments for specific surgical procedures for use in the operating room. As trays come out of the tunnel washer in decontamination, trays and instruments then move to the tray assembly area. Instruments often arrive in a jumble. Surgical Processing Department technicians empty the instruments onto a table at a workstation and use assembly instructions on tray lists to place the instruments in a precise order. After assembling the tray, the technician wraps the tray in cloth or places the tray in a metal container in preparation for the next stage of the instrument life cycle: sterilization.