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Hand-Healthy Hand Scrubs - December 2013 - Subscribe to Outpatient Surgery Magazine

Outpatient Surgery Magazine, providing current information on Surgical Services, Surgical Facility Administration, Outpatient Surgery News and Trends, OR Excellence and more.

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OSE_1213_part2_Layout 1 12/5/13 2:54 PM Page 74 OR HYGIENE • Disinfection monitoring. Dr. Munoz-Price questions whether it's economically practical to retrofit your facility with such solutions if your staff still has room for improvement in hand hygiene compliance and proper disinfection product use. She led a study in the September 2012 Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology demonstrating the positive impact of feedback on OR cleaning. Ann Marie Pettis, RN, BSN, CIC, director of infection prevention at the University of Rochester (N.Y.) Medical Center, agrees. She monitors the thoroughness of surface disinfection with electronic technology. Swab a surface after cleaning and slide the swab into a handheld meter, which calculates the amount of adenosine tri-phosphate (ATP) — a compound found in all organic matter — on the swab. Displayed as a number, the result indicates how much bioload remains on the surface. Another option involves applying a transparent fluorescent gel to surfaces before cleaning, then viewing the surfaces afterward under ultraviolet light to see if it's still there. It's a less expensive option, but requires a bit more effort, says Ms. Pettis, and a qualitative solution as opposed to the ATP reader's quantitative results. Either way, she says, such disinfection monitoring "lends itself to competition. It can be used non-punitively, not to single-out negatively, but to train positively," and ultimately to build a bridge between infection preventionists and the housekeeping or nurse-and-tech crews on whom clean environments depend. — David Bernard 7 4 O U T PAT I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E O N L I N E | D E C E M B E R 2013

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