The Infection Control Today® environmental services (EVS) page recognizes the team responsible for sanitation and cleaning within the health care system. EVS personnel are an integral component of infection prevention in the hospital, working closely together with the health care staff to ensure patient safety and hygiene standards. ICT® keeps a close eye on developments in the environmental services industry and reports on any peer-reviewed literature. This page also features video interviews with EVS and the professionals who interact with them.
September 13th 2024
Sean Brown’s 2024 Disease Prevention Summit presentation emphasized leveraging technology, prioritizing high-risk patients, and environmental surveillance to enhance infection prevention and control strategies.
Understanding the Essentials of Germicidal UV Light
February 18th 2015This report explains the basics of germicidal ultraviolet light for application in the healthcare environment. It reviews the mechanisms for pathogen deactivation, plus explores the variables of UV-C efficacy, the caveats with the use of this kind of technology, and cost considerations. It also provides advice for evaluating and purchasing UV disinfection devices.
Resource Allocation Can Be Guided by Intervention Modeling of Hand Hygiene, Environmental Cleaning
January 4th 2015If having limited resources at your healthcare institution is forcing you to choose one key infection control-related intervention -- either hand hygiene or environmental hygiene -- to get the most return on investment, what would you select? Researchers have developed a model that can help infection preventionists, healthcare epidemiologists and administrators determine which strategies have a better pay-off from a patient safety perspective and can help guide resource-allocation decisions.
Scientists Find a Solution to the Bed Bug Epidemic
December 26th 2014The world owes a debt of gratitude to Simon Fraser University biologist Regine Gries. Her arms have provided a blood meal for more than a thousand bed bugs each week for five years while she and her husband, biology professor Gerhard Gries, searched for a way to conquer the global bed bug epidemic. Working with SFU chemist Robert Britton and a team of students, they have finally found the solution -- a set of chemical attractants, or pheromones, that lure the bed bugs into traps and keep them there.
St. Cloud Surgical Center is First ASC in U.S. to Utilize Xenex Germ-Zapping Robot to Disinfect ORs
December 26th 2014Xenex Disinfection Services announces that St. Cloud Surgical Center is the first ambulatory surgery center (ASC) in the U.S. and the first healthcare facility in St. Cloud to utilize a Xenex germ-zapping robot to enhance patient safety by destroying the deadly pathogens that can cause healthcare-associated infections (HAIs). St. Cloud Surgical Center is using Xenex’s full-spectrum UV disinfection system to disinfect its surgical suites daily.
Researchers Discover Protein Protecting Bacteria Against Chlorine
December 18th 2014Chlorine is a common disinfectant that is used to kill bacteria, for example in swimming pools and drinking water supplies. Our immune system also produces chlorine, which causes proteins in bacteria to lose their natural folding. These unfolded proteins then begin to clump and lose their function. Ruhr University Bochum (RUB) researchers headed by professor Lars Leichert have discovered a protein in the intestinal bacterium E. coli that protects bacteria from chlorine. In the presence of chlorine, it tightly bonds with other proteins, thus preventing them from coagulating. Once the danger has passed, it releases them again and the proteins can continue to work as usual. The researchers report their findings in the current issue of Nature Communications.