Keeping healthcare facilities clean is extremely important. A dirty bedrail or keyboard could be deadly if the germs hitch a ride to a patient’s catheter or surgical site and cause an infection.
Especially with germs like Clostridium difficile and Acinetobacter baumannii, which are very hardy and difficult to kill, thorough cleaning of all surfaces—especially high-touch surfaces—in patient room is critically important.
When time is tight, and rooms need to be turned around fast, it can be hard to get the job done right. But it’s important for patient safety that cleaning and disinfection be done at the right time, in the right way, and with the right materials.
We are all patient safety stewards and have the responsibility to ensure our care environments are clean and free of germs.
What you can do:
- Environmental Services specialists, patient care specialists, and infection preventionists should communicate frequently with one another to ensure everyone is doing the right things to keep patients safe in the healthcare environment.
- Use the CDC’s environmental checklist for monitoring terminal cleaning to monitor the cleaning of high-touch surfaces in patient care areas.
Learn more and share:
- It takes a team infographic—from the AHRQ Safety Program for Ambulatory Surgery (funded by AHRQ, developed by APIC and HRET)
- Environmental services—APIC topic-specific webpage
- Environmental Public Health Online Courses (EPHOC)—The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
- Environmental cleaning checklist for monitoring terminal cleaning—The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention