1) Name of the session and presenter:
a. Season Name: Environmental Hygiene MythBusters! An Interactive Session to Distinguish Fact from Fiction
b. Presenter: Rebecca Battjes, MPH, CIC, FAPIC
2) 3 Key Learnings from the Session
This was a fun and interactive presentation! The presenter reviewed a study that is still in progress of observing EVS daily cleaning operations across several hospitals in the US. Three key learnings that stood out from their findings so far:
a. They found that a majority of EVS and leadership priorities were focused on floor cleanliness (mopping) and picking up trash versus cleaning high-touch surfaces.
b. The average turnover time for rooms is 9 minutes (1 minute less than the common disinfectant that most hospitals were using)
c. It is important to define roles and responsibilities to determine who is responsible for cleaning and disinfecting what. For example, in a survey they found that there was often confusion for who was responsible (i.e., who cleans IV pumps?), etc.
3) How you are going to apply those learnings
a. I think it would be interesting to conduct similar surveys/observations within my facility. This could help identify what leadership and EVS consider priorities and who is responsible for what. Doing these can even help support or even validate more resources for EVS. I know for our facility we have seen an increase in acuity levels in our psychiatric patients, which has resulted in rooms more heavily soiled with bodily fluids. Doing time observations on these can help support our staff and all the challenging work they do.
(presentation slides unavailable to download at this time).
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Jennifer Rowland, BSN, RN, CIC
Nurse Epidemiologist
Oregon State Hospital
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