The Infection Control Today® environmental services (EVS) page recognizes the team responsible for sanitation and cleaning within the health care system. EVS personnel are an integral component of infection prevention in the hospital, working closely together with the health care staff to ensure patient safety and hygiene standards. ICT® keeps a close eye on developments in the environmental services industry and reports on any peer-reviewed literature. This page also features video interviews with EVS and the professionals who interact with them.
October 16th 2024
Paul Harleman of Vileda Professional discusses their partnership with Clean Hospitals, emphasizing innovation, sustainability, and global efforts to improve hospital hygiene and safety.
CDC Spreads Fight Against Antibiotic Overprescribing Over the World
December 9th 2021CDC’s Michael Craig: “Every country is an importer and an exporter of resistance…. And our hope is that this could be a jumpstart to help some of these countries start to build the capacity that is needed everywhere.”
Environmental Services Workers Need to be Certified
November 2nd 2021Darrel Hicks: “EVS teams work around professionals who are certified—whether it’s respiratory therapists, physical therapists, the RNs, the doctors—and I think if we ever hoped to elevate their status that we need to certify environmental services workers to a certain level of knowledge before they even start cleaning patient rooms.”
Troubled Water Makes for Sick Hospitals
October 18th 2021Brian Flannigan: “The reason why water quality and water safety is so important in sterile processing is that there have been direct connections made between the water systems and hospital infections: operating room infections, asset life problems, maintenance problems, staining and discoloration of equipment.”
As HAIs Rise, New Methods of Counterattack Sought
October 14th 2021Even the most rigorous infection prevention protocols come unraveled if compliance isn’t maintained. The challenge is that for busy health care professionals, remembering when and how to disinfect is just one of many competing tasks in an extremely busy day.
Let Airflow Show Pathogens the Door (or Window or Vent)
June 18th 2021An integrated air management system requires proper engineering and not a pile-up approach of unproven products. One concern is that decision makers will fall into the nearsighted trap of selecting piecemeal products that require frequent maintenance.
Quick Action Keeps NICU Respiratory Illness in Check
April 15th 2021The multidisciplinary team included NICU nurses, physicians, nurse practitioners and, perhaps most important of all, environmental services personnel. “We met with the environmental services staff, and we explained to them that this is a critical situation in the neonatal ICU. And this cannot spread more.”