Nurses & Disinfection Practices: What Role Do They Play?

Barley Chironda, RPN, CIC, infection control specialist at Clorox Healthcare, explains the role that nurses play in disinfection practices at health care facilities.

Interview Transcript (modified slightly for readability):

“Nurses play a critical role in surface disinfection processes—period. I can think back from my time when I was actually practicing as a bedside nurse, and that’s when I got into this work. One of the things that nurses have to do every single time that they get in a patient room and they leave with a piece of equipment, is they have to wipe it down; they are wiping down pieces of equipment every day, every hour, every instance at their work.

They get involved in the selection process because they have to choose something that they also like. In addition, they also have to be part of the process about how things truly work. I see nurses getting involved in the process of actually identifying that one product that they have right now that doesn’t work or acknowledging a new product that does work and continuously evaluate it.

Therefore, nurses are a very critical part of the process, and one of the things that I always say to people is that we’re all going to be patients one day and nurses get a frontline view about what’s going on in the health care system, and so, they are a key, integral part of the process of selecting disinfectants.”