Surgical Instruments Journey Into the Suburbs

As hospital sterilization departments face unprecedented bottlenecks, a new corporate alliance seeks to move the entire process off-site

19 May 2026

Getinge and SteriPro International have formed a partnership to establish off-site medical sterilization facilities. The collaboration combines the Swedish equipment manufacturer's hardware and tracking software with SteriPro’s managed services to handle cleaning demands outside traditional hospital settings.

The shift comes as hospitals face rising surgery volumes and severe staff shortages in their central sterile supply departments. At the same time, tighter rules under the EU Medical Device Regulation now legally require institutions to provide verifiable digital records for every processed instrument.

Getinge will supply its T-DOC software to ensure traceability, while SteriPro will manage the high-throughput centers. The model aims to reduce capital expenditure for hospitals, which often struggle to balance infrastructure costs with clinical priorities.

However, industry analysts point out that moving sterilization off-site introduces new logistics risks. Moving critical instruments back and forth could create supply vulnerabilities and delay same-day surgeries if transport networks fail.

These companies argue that centralized hubs offer better efficiency and safety standards than aging in-house departments.

"Together with Getinge, we are redefining what safe, scalable, and resilient sterile processing looks like for hospitals," said Ajay K. Jain, Managing Partner at SteriPro.

Julia Elner of Getinge added that the partnership gives facilities "a more complete, end-to-end pathway for optimizing sterile processing."

Health systems across Europe and North America are monitoring the venture. The success of the model will depend on whether independent logistics providers can guarantee the strict turnaround times that modern surgery schedules require.