Environmental Services

Just how efficacious are the cleaning and disinfection interventions performed in healthcare institutions? And what standard are hospitals using to evaluate cleaning efforts?  While it has been suggested that the food industry cleanliness standard (surface bioburden level of <2.5 cfu/cm²) be adopted in healthcare as an indication of relative cleanliness, there is still a lack of conclusive evidence that these levels of contamination relate to the prevention of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs).

This report explains the basics of germicidal ultraviolet light for application in the healthcare environment. It reviews the mechanisms for pathogen deactivation, plus explores the variables of UV-C efficacy, the caveats with the use of this kind of technology, and cost considerations. It also provides advice for evaluating and purchasing UV disinfection devices.

If having limited resources at your healthcare institution is forcing you to choose one key infection control-related intervention -- either hand hygiene or environmental hygiene -- to get the most return on investment, what would you select? Researchers have developed a model that can help infection preventionists, healthcare epidemiologists and administrators determine which strategies have a better pay-off from a patient safety perspective and can help guide resource-allocation decisions.

The world owes a debt of gratitude to Simon Fraser University biologist Regine Gries. Her arms have provided a blood meal for more than a thousand bed bugs each week for five years while she and her husband, biology professor Gerhard Gries, searched for a way to conquer the global bed bug epidemic. Working with SFU chemist Robert Britton and a team of students, they have finally found the solution -- a set of chemical attractants, or pheromones, that lure the bed bugs into traps and keep them there.

Xenex Disinfection Services announces that St. Cloud Surgical Center is the first ambulatory surgery center (ASC) in the U.S. and the first healthcare facility in St. Cloud to utilize a Xenex germ-zapping robot to enhance patient safety by destroying the deadly pathogens that can cause healthcare-associated infections (HAIs). St. Cloud Surgical Center is using Xenex’s full-spectrum UV disinfection system to disinfect its surgical suites daily.