Why soft surface sanitization is important
How would your facility look if it were cleaned on the same schedule as your cubicle curtains?
The standard practice of cleaning curtains when visibly soiled and only after an isolation discharge ensures no routine cleaning schedule and leaves many cubicle curtains often not being cleaned at all.
Cubicle curtains are frequently touched by healthcare workers anD patients.
Soft surfaces such as cubicle curtains are porous, and not cleanable by simply wiping. Cubicle curtains can also be a common source of cross contamination given that their operation requires the hospital worker, or caregiver, to touch it with their hands.
Do you know the facts?
““Presently more people die with a hospital-acquired infection than the total of breast cancer, AIDS and car accidents combined.””
EVIDENCE SHOWS DIRECT LINKS TO HAI'S AND CUBICLE CURTAINS
- 271 people a day, the equivalent of an airline crash, will die from hospital-acquired infections (HAI's) such as Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).
- “In 1993, there were fewer than 2,000 MRSA infections in U.S. hospitals. By 2005, the figure had shot up to 368,000 according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).
- By June 2007, 2.4 percent of all patients had MRSA infections, according to the largest study of its kind, which was published in the American Journal of Infection Control. That would mean 880,000 victims a year.” http://www.hospitalinfection.org/essentialfacts.shtml
““Hospital privacy curtains are frequently and rapidly contaminated with potentially pathogenic bacteria. Within one week of laundering, 92 percent of hospital privacy curtains were contaminated with potentially dangerous bacteria such as MRSA (methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus) and VRE (vancomycin-resistant enterococcus)”.”
"Vancomycin Resistant Enterococci", or VRE
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus Bacteria MRSA (yellow) being ingested by neutrophil (purplish blue). Credit: NIAID
“ “In fact, one in 17 patients will be diagnosed with an HAI every day even though more than one-third of these infections are preventable.” ”