Evaluating environmental cleanliness in hospitals and other healthcare settings

摘要

The Tasmanian Infection Prevention and Control Unit (TIPCU) situated within the Department of Health and Human Services has published a report titled 'Evaluating environmental cleanliness in hospitals and other healthcare settings'. The genesis of this report occurred in December 2010 when the Tasmanian Healthcare Associated Infection Advisory Group supported TIPCU to undertake a review of environmental hygiene practices in healthcare facilities. The aim of this report was to assess current local, national and international practices and literature in relation to evaluating how environmental hygiene in healthcare environments is assessed. We found numerous studies within the published literature that discuss both the extent of contamination of the healthcare environment as well as the efficacy and assessment of cleaning. We described two overarching methods of assessing environmental cleanliness: process evaluation, which includes visual inspection and fluorescent gel application, and outcome evaluation, where cleanliness is measured using methods such as adenosine triphosphate (ATP) detection or microbial cultures.