Healthcare For Facilities & Houses

The Important Of Environmental Cleanliness In The Healthcare Facilities and houses :

A Healthcare Associated Infection (HAI) is an infection occurring in a patient during the process of care in a hospital or other healthcare facility, which was not present or incubating at the time of admission. The includes infections acquired in the hospital but appearing after discharge and also occupational infections amongst staff of the facility.

HAIS must not be accepted as an inevitable consequence of healthcare intervention, and the principles of infection prevention and control have to be embedded into everyday clinical practice and not to be viewed as something separate.

HAIS have had an increasingly high profile over the past 15 years, affecting hundreds of millions of patients per year, with the highest prevalence in developing or low-income countries, where resources are limited and reporting and surveillance strategies are weak.

Concerns regarding hospital cleanliness have frequently hit the headlines over the last decade, Cleaning is one of the most important tasks in any healthcare setting, and keeping the environment clean is a challenge for cleaning staff. However, the responsibility dose not rest solely with then, all healthcare staff have a role to play in keeping the environment and equipment clean.

 “Clean care is safe care“, as the contamination of the indoor environment can play a major role in the spread of diseases. Using the appropriate materials and equipment, cleaning reduces the bacterial bio-burden (i.e., the number of bacteria residing on an item).

However, there are many factors that can impede effective cleaning and these include:

  • Poor cleaning techniques, which will distribute dirt rather than remove it.
  • Dirty cleaning equipment that is not cleaned after use and not stored appropriately.
  • Cluttered work surfaces, untidy store rooms, and insufficient storage facilities.
  • Poor quality finishes to surfaces, walls, and flooring that are not intact, not washable, and not impervious.
  • Healthcare staff not taking responsibility for cleaning, lack of cleaning standards monitoring, and absence or non-display of cleaning schedules.

A clean environment must not only appear to be clean, but must also be organized as well as feel and smell clean. Whether or not environmental contamination can contribute to the transmission of microorganisms and HAIS is dependent upon the ability of the organisms to survive on surfaces (hand surfaces, soft surface, and textiles), the frequency with which surfaces become contaminated (i.e, how often they are used or touched) and the extent of contamination.

If healthcare staff decontaminate their hands strictly in accordance as recommended by WHO then the risk of their hands being vectors for the carriage and transmission of microorganisms should be greatly reduced.