The Silent Foundation of Patient Safety: Why Water Quality Matters in Sterile Processing

In healthcare, patient safety and operational efficiency often depend on invisible systems working perfectly in the background. One of those systems—water quality—has quietly become a defining factor in sterile processing success. With new standards such as AAMI ST108 setting stricter expectations, hospitals and SPDs (Sterile Processing Departments) are rethinking how they monitor, manage, and measure their water. Considering that a single SPD will likely use thousands of gallons of water daily, the stakes for getting water quality right have never been higher.

What does “good water quality” actually mean for sterile processing, and how can hospitals transform it from a compliance checkbox into a driver of patient safety and efficiency?

Welcome to ConCensis. In the latest episode, host Daniel Litwin, the Voice of B2B at MarketScale, sits down with Jeffrey Paquet, CEO of VERDA Water Quality Systems, to unpack the unseen yet critical role of water in healthcare operations. Together, they explore how water quality impacts everything from instrument integrity to infection prevention, and how technology and cross-disciplinary teamwork are reshaping the way SPDs think about their most used resource.

What you’ll learn…

• Water as a performance multiplier: From detergents and enzymes to sterilizers, proper water quality determines how effective every step of the SPD process can be. Poor water equals damaged instruments, higher costs, and potential infection risk.

• Three essential water types: Paquet breaks down utility, critical, and steam water—each with unique standards, uses, and monitoring requirements that SPDs must understand and routinely test for.

• Data-driven management: Technologies like VERDA’s real-time monitoring systems and Censis’ CensiTrac enable departments to correlate water data with instrument outcomes, helping pinpoint and solve quality issues before they escalate.

Jeffrey Paquet is an accomplished healthcare and engineering executive with over two decades of experience leading innovation in medical infrastructure and water quality management. As CEO of VERDA Water Quality Systems and Mobile Medical International Corporation (mmic™), he specializes in ensuring hospitals maintain operational continuity through high-quality temporary surgical and sterile processing facilities. His career highlights include advancing sustainable water quality solutions for healthcare environments and guiding cross-industry engineering design and product development through his firm, Dimension Business Group.