INFECTION PREVENTION


facilities still need continued diligence as it relates to cleaning and disinfection given it plays an imperative role as part of a holistic strategy to help keep patients, visi- tors, and staff healthy and safe from other pathogens that are easily transmitted via surfaces.”


Doe Kley


Healthcare facilities have and will con- tinue to be challenged with preventing the spread of pathogens that contribute to healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) like Clostridioides dificile (C. diff), especially with the rise of antibiotic resistant patho- gens, such as drug-resistant Candida auris (C. auris), Kley continued. “Both C. diff and C. auris can survive on surfaces for prolonged periods and frequent routes of transmission include contact with contaminated environmental surfaces such as medical equipment, fomites and person-to-person. Moving forward, it is also important for everyone in healthcare to continue playing a role in cleaning and disinfecting.”


Everyone should contribute to infection prevention efforts, Kley said. “While EVS are required to clean given areas once a day, all staff such as nurses should clean and disinfect their workspaces including high-touch surfaces such as telephones and printer control panels. Nurses should also wipe-down high-touch surfaces in patient rooms such as doorknobs, bed rails, bed tables and control panels of medical equipment at least once per shift. All clinical staff should also clean and disinfect any patient care equipment they are responsible for after each use. To do so effectively, it is important to ensure every- one uses the right product for the right occasion as different areas in a hospital may have different cleaning and disin- fecting needs based on the location and transmission risks. ien the high traffic in hospitals, a sanitary environment is key to infection prevention and control efforts and to achieve this, it will mean continued collaboration among disciplines, IPs, and EVS professionals.”


Hygiene going digital The COVID-19 pandemic emphasized the impor- tance of ensuring proper hygiene compliance to help prevent the spread of illness, and evidence suggests that these height- ened hygiene expectations are here to stay, accord- ing to Raquel Carbonari, North America


Raquel Carbonari


Regional Brand Activation Director at Tork, an Essity Brand.


“Securing proper training for healthcare practitioners and EVS professionals can help departments deal with high rates of turnover,” she said. Tork designed Tork Clean Hands Training and Tork Clean Hospital Training with the goal in mind to make hand hygiene and cleaning envi- ronmental surfaces training more efficient, engaging and accessible at no cost. “Virtual trainings allow for best practice sharing anytime, therefore contribut- ing to better patient health outcomes,” Carbonari emphasized. Tork’s trainings utilize virtual reality (VR) to enhance results. Trainees can practice the World Health Organization’s (WHO) 5 moments for hand hygiene using their own hands. Digital tools help EVS teams understand


when and where there are cleaning needs in a facility, Carbonari said. “So many of our processes today have become digi- tized. Think back to 20 years ago, would it seem possible that patients would be filling out paperwork or checking into appoint- ments on their mobile devices? Not only does digitalization make these processes much faster, but it supplies a steady stream of data from which healthcare profession- als like IP technicians can make informed decisions.”


While not ‘new,’ automated hand


hygiene monitoring systems, like the PURELL SMARTLINK technologies, are becoming more readily accepted said Rosenthal, GOJO. The SMARTLINK Activity Monitoring System provides data collection in facilities 24/7. The system informs hospitals of their hand hygiene performance so they can take action as needed.


“As healthcare facilities are renewing


focus on basic patient safety and public health efforts like hand hygiene, ensuring that the right products are in the right places is important. Hand sanitizers and soaps that are efficacious, proen to maintain skin health and are preferred by healthcare workers are needed to support compliance-building efforts. Simply put, if healthcare workers don’t like the products, they won’t use them – and then what’s the point? PURELL offers a healthcare hand sanitier that is efficacious at the lowest dose. This helps busy healthcare workers move between tasks more quickly, which is critical,” Rosenthal said.


Her colleague, Megan DiGiorgio, MSN, RN, CIC, FAPIC, Senior Clinical Manager, GOJO, expressed that quality improvement initiatives were placed on hold during the pandemic. “It’s still prob- ably unclear the extent to which patient


safety and quality have suffered. Be that as it may, quality metrics like hand hygiene are essential during times of both stability and crisis.” The goal of any quality


metric is to obtain reliable data to improve patient safety, yet hospitals rely- ing on direct observation of hand hygiene alone are likely insufficiently allocating and deploying


Megan DiGiorgio


valuable resources, DiGiorgio continued. “The challenges of direct observation have been described at length, including capturing only a small portion of hand hygiene opportunities and the Hawthorne effect. Quality, safety and infection pre- vention leaders all readily acknowledge that a gap exists between reported com- pliance rates and hand hygiene behaviors taking place on a 24/7 basis and are questioning whether this gold standard is sufficient to manage risk in the wake of the growing burden of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs).”


Need to vent Emerging pathogens and pandemics have expanded infection prevention and con- trol program responsibili- ties requiring additional preparedness efforts and implementation strat- egies as recommenda- tions have continuously evolved, according to Karen Hoffmann RN, MS, CIC, FAPIC, FSHEA, an


Karen Hoffmann


infection preventionist consultant for the Vidashield UV24 from Nuvo Surgical. “The COVID-19 pandemic created a demand particularly surrounding prod- ucts that could decrease aerosol exposure by increasing ventilation as droplet aerosol was recognized as the primary route of transmission.”


The COVID-19 pandemic has affected IPC programs as efforts were diverted to focus on pandemic management, she continued. “MRSA and central line-asso- ciated bloodstream HAI incidence sig- nificantly increased during the pandemic, while other HAIs remained relatively stable. Air contamination is now being recognied as a significant risk for cross- transmission. Current HVAC systems do not adequately address the aerosol route of transmission. Installing upper room germicidal ultraviolet irradiation (UVGI) for example the Vidashield UV 24 system that are an HVAC adjunct to provide continuous improved ventilation is an overdue need.”


hpnonline.com • HEALTHCARE PURCHASING NEWS • July 2022 27


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