Effective cleaning along with appropriate disinfection practices can reduce infection transmission in the healthcare setting, according to an article on the FacilityCare website.
The testing of cleaned surfaces is key to ensuring the risks of hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) are reduced.
Studies have shown that providing environmental services staff with feedback about the results of such monitoring and educating them about the importance of their activities have led to significant improvements in the proportion of surfaces that are cleaned by the frontline staff, the article said.
The best practices for environmental surface monitoring include supplementing visual inspection with new technology such as fluorescent marking or ATP measuring devices.