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...
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...
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...
Review of textiles and environmental soft surfaces as a vector for hospital acquired infections
There has been a rise in the data that supports the environment as one of the important modes of pathogen transmission that contributes significantly to hospital acquired infections (HAI). For example, Gastmeier and his colleagues attributed the source of outbreaks to contaminated surfaces in...
Do linens and environmental soft surfaces playing a role in the infection process?
Textile products, also called soft surfaces are widely used in the hospital environment. Some of these textiles products or soft surfaces are in direct contact with the patients, such as blankets, sheets, pyjamas, towels, gowns, and pillowcases. Other fabric or textile products are used by the...
Do hard surfaces play a role in the transmission of nosocomial pathogens
As discussed in our previous blogs, surfaces with frequent hand contact and in close proximity to the patients are often the most colonized with pathogens. These pathogens can remain viable on these inanimate surfaces for prolonged periods of time, and over a wide range of environmental conditions....