Why Current Environmental Cleaning Practices Used in Hospitals Aren't Making the Cut

Barley Chironda, RPN, CIC, infection control specialist at Clorox Healthcare, explains why current environmental disinfection practices aren’t making the cut.

Interview Transcript (modified slightly for readability):

“When you look at environmental cleaning practices in terms of why they’re not making the cut, I think that when you look at disinfection itself it requires everything to go really well. It requires somebody to have the necessary time to follow the directions of use, and unfortunately, a lot of products require a lot of time for them to work. Because people might not have time, they might take shortcuts and then that compromises the efficacy of some products. You also look at certain products that require end use acceptance, where a person needs to love using it; for example, if something smells bad, that might limit how they use it. When you look at it, there’s actually 10 criteria for surface disinfection and you’ve got to look at each factor as you decide on your disinfectant, because failure to do that leads you to not having the appropriate outcomes. Therefore, you have to look at a plethora of factors that will then put you in a position of getting the outcomes you want.”