Sealed room solution for combating HCAIs

Suzanne Callander reports on the North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust’s installation of the UK’s first Steris VaproQuip fully enclosed decontamination room system, which has enabled considerably quicker, simultaneous decontamination of equipment such as drips stands, computers, and keyboards within a single space. The system’s purchase is just one element of a committed and considerably broader Trust drive to reduce healthcare-associated infections (HCAIs), and particularly to reduce cases of C. difficile. This has also seen implemented a wide range of other cleaning and decontamination activities – from use of mobile HPV units to systematic ward decants and touch point cleaning.

There is plenty of evidence to show the importance of effective cleaning of non-critical equipment in breaking the chain of healthcare-associated infections (HCAIs). Because hospital personnel often touch non-critical equipment and then proceed to care for patients without washing their hands or changing gloves, it does represent a significant disease transmission risk.

esults of a study which aimed to establish whether healthcare workers’ (HCWs) fingertips were contaminated with MRSA in a clinical hospital setting. The study was conducted in an acute tertiary referral hospital on four MRSA wards that were part of a larger research study on MRSA epidemiology and four other wards which were not included. The fingertips of 523 HCW, were sampled on 822 occasions. The type of hand hygiene agent used, if any, and the immediate prior activity of the HCW, were recorded. Overall, 5% of fingertips from the 523 HCWs were found to be MRSA-positive; 6% after clinical contact, 10% after contact with the patient’s environment, and 4% after no specific contact. MRSA was recovered on 3% of occasions after use of alcohol hand rub, 6% after using a 4% chlorhexidine detergent, 3% after hand washing with soap and water, and 5% when no hand hygiene had been performed. MRSA was recovered from HCWs on seven of the eight wards. MRSA was more frequently present on fingertips on the four non-study wards versus the four MRSA-study wards, 7%, 1%, respectively.