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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erate alcohol-based disinfectants, which can dry out the probe and potentially cause cracking and damage. For surfaces like this, contact the manufacturers and ask them to provide in writing what disinfec- tants can safely be used on your equipment. 7 4 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E • F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 6 1. Consider how an item is used. When cleaning patient equipment and surfaces, think of how they're used and where they have contact with patients and staff. Failing to do so might result in ineffective cleaning. Take the stethoscope, for example. Most staff clean it without thinking about how they interact with it. They diligently clean the diaphragm and the tubing, but rarely does anyone clean the ear tubes (the part that connects the ear tips to the tubing). In most cases staff touch the ear tubes to remove the ear tips from their ears after they've held the diaphragm against the patient. This means the staff's con- taminated hands have come into direct contact with the ear tubes. This makes the ear tubes the second- most contaminated part of the stethoscope and also the most likely not to be cleaned. 2. Train all staff who do cleaning on how to effectively clean. This means not just your environmental service (EVS) staff. Studies showed that most items were ineffectively cleaned before the introduction of Dazo or Glo Germ or ATP technology. By showing staff what they are missing using this technology, it improves their ability to clean (knowing how much mechanical action is required and what surfaces they routinely miss). Yet most facilities miss training the RN staff and other staff that are also assigned cleaning duties. If we don't train these staff on how to disinfect, we have no reason to expect that they will clean and disinfect items effectively. 3. Make a list of who cleans what. Develop lists of who cleans what items in each area in your facility. In my visits to outpatient surgery centers, I'll sometimes ask nurses what upsets them that never gets cleaned. They'll identify an item. I will ask the nurses who cleans it and they'll say EVS. I'll then ask EVS and they say the scrub tech and the scrub tech when queried says the RN. This lets me know no one has cleaned the IV pump in quite a while. If you don't have a list that states the expectations of who cleans what, you can't hold people accountable for not cleaning it. — Frank Myers, MA, CIC Mr. Myers (frmyers@ucsd.edu) is an infection preventionist III at UC San Diego Health System in San Diego, Calif INTELLECT AND REASON Smart Approach to Surface Disinfection