Medical sinks

From the nurses’ handwash basin to the surgical scrub sink, Medical Process offers a complete range covering the hand hygiene needs of all healthcare professionals. Our two medical handwash basin models — the MP’SMART and the MP’MEDIO — have been designed to go beyond the limitations of standard sinks and meet the real constraints of hospital and dental environments: infection risk, asepsis protocols, intensive daily use, and repeated disinfection.

A standard bathroom or kitchen sink was not designed for a care environment. In a medical or dental practice, and even more so in a hospital setting, its design flaws become genuine health risks for both patients and healthcare staff.

A conventional ceramic sink structurally presents several critical points from a clinical hygiene perspective:

• The overflow is a major bacterial niche: the stagnant water it accumulates is an ideal breeding ground for pathogenic organisms, particularly Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Legionella. Impossible to disinfect effectively from the outside, it contaminates the water supply in return through back-contamination.
• Silicone joints between the basin and the worktop, or between the tap fittings and the sink, create crevices where bacteria proliferate out of reach of disinfectant products. These joints degrade with hospital-grade disinfectants, creating micro-cracks over time that are even more hospitable to germs.
• The manually operated tap is the primary surface for cross-contamination between patients and caregivers: soiled hands activate it before washing, and clean hands turn it off afterwards — partially negating the effect of handwashing.
• The shallow basin generates splashing onto the worktop, walls and surrounding equipment, contributing to the dispersal of micro-organisms throughout the room.
• Sharp corners and recesses inside the basin are areas that are difficult to clean and disinfect properly, prone to accumulation of organic residues and limescale.
• Counter-mounted tap fittings and their mounting plates create inaccessible recesses for brushes and disinfectants that an inevitably standard sink tap generates.

In a dental or medical setting, each of these flaws represents a potential vector for cross-infection — a reality incompatible with the regulatory obligations of healthcare professionals.

Medical Process has rethought every design element of its medical handwash basins to systematically eliminate the risks identified above. Here, point by point, is what makes the MP’SMART and MP’MEDIO radically superior to a standard sink.

The MP’SMART and MP’MEDIO medical handwash basins are designed with no overflow and no crevices, eliminating bacterial risk zones. Each product is moulded in a single block of reinforced polyester, with no joints or bonding. There is therefore no silicone sealant that could degrade, no crevice between two assembled components, no non-disinfectable space. The surface is continuous, smooth and homogeneous across the entire basin — a characteristic impossible to achieve with a ceramic basin screwed onto a worktop.

The MP’SMART and MP’MEDIO are manufactured in fibreglass-reinforced polyester, coated with a high-resistance sanitary ISO NPG gelcoat. This material, specifically formulated for medical environments, offers several decisive advantages over standard glazed ceramic:

• Non-porous surface: bacteria cannot penetrate or lodge durably within the material, unlike ceramic whose glaze can develop micro-cracks from impacts or aggressive cleaning products.
• High chemical resistance: ISO NPG gelcoat withstands concentrated hospital disinfectants — bleach, alcohol-based detergents, virucidal products — without degrading, dulling or yellowing over time.
• Impact and stain resistance: unlike ceramic enamel, which shatters on impact and exposes porous surfaces that cannot be disinfected, reinforced polyester absorbs impacts without cracking.
• Easy maintenance: the smooth, non-porous surface can be completely cleaned and disinfected in seconds, with no abrasive products or complex protocols required.

The MP’SMART and MP’MEDIO medical handwash basins are available with four types of hands-free water controls. Whether using an infrared sensor, knee control, elbow control or thermostatic mixer, the principle is the same: the healthcare professional never makes manual contact with the water controls at the critical moment of handwashing. This feature is fundamental: with a standard manually operated tap, soiled hands touch the tap before washing, and clean hands close it afterwards — re-contaminating the fingers just before a procedure.

The infrared control also integrates a programmable automatic purge, preventing water stagnation in the pipework between uses — an additional risk of bacterial contamination eliminated as standard.

The high backsplash and lateral cheeks offer maximum protection, and the rounded edges without sharp angles allow easy cleaning without water stagnation or deposits. The basin of the MP’SMART and MP’MEDIO is deeper than that of a standard sink, which breaks the water flow and drastically reduces splashing onto worktops, surrounding equipment and floors. In a dental practice or care room, each splash is a potential vector for aerosol contamination.

The wall-mounted tap limits contact zones and bacterial accumulation. Fixed directly into the backsplash, it eliminates the mounting plates, fixing joints and recesses that a tap mounted on the rim of a standard sink inevitably generates. The standard Medical Process spout is also removable, allowing rapid disinfection or replacement without any intervention on the rest of the basin.

The MP’SMART can receive the filtration system required to guarantee sterile water when needed. The MP’MEDIO benefits from the same option. A 0.2 µm absolute terminal filter clipped to the tap protects against Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Legionella and other pathogenic organisms that can colonise hospital hot water networks. A standard sink cannot accommodate this type of medical filtration system without specific adaptation.

Easy to install thanks to its compact footprint, the MP’SMART medical handwash basin is ideal for hygienic handwashing in a medical practice, or during routine and outpatient medical procedures in a hospital setting. Its compact dimensions (L: 500mm / H: 625mm / D: 425mm — weight: 10kg) allow installation in restricted spaces where a standard sink would not fit, while offering a level of clinical hygiene that the latter cannot achieve.

This medical sink is intended for medical practices, consultation rooms, nursing care rooms, maternity wards, resuscitation bays, delivery rooms, patient corridors and rooms, and emergency bays. Thanks to its affordable price, it gives dentists, general practitioners and other independent healthcare professionals access to secure hand hygiene in their practices.

Positioned between the SMART handwash basin and the UNO surgical scrub sink, the MP’MEDIO enables daily aseptic handwashing and occasional surgical hand scrubbing. Intended for practitioners in independent medical practices, it installs easily in small scrub-room anterooms and provides the level of hygiene required in an aseptic environment while minimising footprint.

The MP’MEDIO basin is particularly wide and deep compared to standard medical handwash basins, further reducing splashing. This hospital sink is suitable for medical practices, consultation rooms, practice scrub anterooms, care rooms, nursing services, maternity wards, resuscitation bays and patient rooms.

For over fifteen years, Medical Process has been committed to improving hand hygiene in medical settings and making it accessible to as many professionals as possible. Our products are used in hospitals in more than fifty countries worldwide to limit the risk of nosocomial infection and protect patients.

Our medical handwash basins are designed, manufactured and installed in direct collaboration with engineering design offices and architects specialising in healthcare facility projects. Each project is analysed upstream to recommend the most suitable hospital sink for your configuration, patient flow and internal hygiene protocols.

Do you have a medical handwash basin or hospital sink project? Contact your dedicated technical sales representative at +33 (0)9.83.98.43.56 or by email at contact@medicalprocess.fr. Reply guaranteed within 24 hours.