Metal ion technologies-What can they kill?
As mentioned in my recent blog, some metals, especially copper and silver, are being used in touchless disinfecting products in medical environments. In that blog I briefly discussed the multiple non-specific parallel mechanisms by which exposure of microorganisms to high concentrations to these...
How effective are UV or misting technologies?
Chemical fumigation was used in the 1960s to supplement standard environmental surface disinfection in hospital isolation rooms (1). As mentioned in my last blog, the CDC in their Guidelines for Environmental Infection Control in Health-Care Facilities, recommend against using chemical fogging due...
Touchless Disinfecting- mist and emitting technologies (UV and Hydrogen peroxide)-How do they work?
As discussed in earlier blogs, microorganisms can survive in the environment for long periods of time and it has become clear that eliminating microorganisms from the patient immediate and non-immediate surroundings significantly contributes to the reduction of HAIs. It has also become clear that...
Disinfectants-How do they work?
We have previously reviewed the how, the what and the who of disinfection , but in this post we want to look in more detail at how disinfectants work. There are a number of disinfectants, and manufacturers to choose from, but in this post we are going to look at the mode of action of the major...
A summary of manual cleaning and disinfection, and touchless disinfection technologies
A variety of our recent posts have looked at both manual cleaning and disinfection, how effective manual efforts are, and touchless disinfection technology to complement manual cleaning regimes. We also reviewed what data is available and how to rate that data when considering investing in a...
What levels of evidence need to be considered when reviewing a touchless disinfection system?
In the last post my colleague Dr Vikram Kanmukhla reviewed in detail the options for touchless disinfection systems as add on to manual cleaning and disinfection processes. In that post he reviewed the variety and depth of technologies. One of the overarching comments to that post is that all of...
Touchless or no-touch technologies for cleaning and disinfection
In the previous two posts , my colleagues have discussed the choice of disinfectants for manual cleaning and effectiveness (or ineffectiveness) of manual cleaning. In this post, I would like to discuss the range of technologies available to assist with patient room cleaning & disinfection. These...
How effective is manual cleaning in hospitals?
Hospital cleaning depends on many factors, such as the frequencies, methodology and equipment used, monitoring and training of personnel. How these parameters influence the effectiveness of the cleaning process are nicely discussed by Dancer SJ (1,2). In previous posts we discussed the choices of...
Environmental manual cleaning and disinfection
In previous posts we have reviewed the difference between "clean" and hygienic (see here and here). In this post I wanted to delve deeper into the choices of disinfectants for manual cleaning. We describe cleaning by hand as manual cleaning as it requires physical intervention in order to reduce...
Whats the evidence for hand or glove contamination with nosocomial pathogens after touching environmental surfaces?
In previous blogs we discussed how surfaces in close proximity to hospitalized patients become contaminated with a range of pathogens (see here). Our review of contamination of environmental solid surfaces, and soft surfaces demonstrated that these surfaces have a role in the infection process. In...