We are more than just a water pump company. Through our solutions and services, we touch millions and millions of people every day, without most even noticing. And with that comes great responsibility. A responsibility to respect, protect and advance the flow of water for people, businesses and the planet. Because at Grundfos, we believe that every drop contains infinite possibilities, and that water has the power to change the world.
These organisms belong to a group of carbapenem-resistant, gram-negative bacteria of national and international concern because of their implication as an emerging cause of severe healthcare-associated infections. In , the World Health Organization published the first global guidelines for the prevention and control of CRE-CRAB-CRPsA in healthcare facilities, which include environmental cleaning and disinfection as a key recommendation.
In settings where hospital cleaning services are assigned to private sector contractors, the use of new no-touch technologies could be considered in outsourcing contracts as an improvement action in the event of non-compliance in the cleaning service. The dedicated personnel should be adequately trained not only on the cleaning protocols to be adopted but also on infection control issues, underlining the key role of cleaning procedures.
Moreover, it would be important to evaluate the advantages of implemented cleaning and disinfection protocols with the use of UV-C devices in areas hosting fragile and vulnerable patients, e.g., in intensive care units. The principal limitation is the continuous presence of people in this type of setting. For this reason, it would be worth evaluating strategies aimed at protecting the patients safety using protective devices, which may be evaluated for human security during UV-C emission at specific dosages and times.
Hospital environmental hygiene is a complex process because it is influenced by several variables, such as the type of surface, incorrect disinfectant contact times, excessive dilution of disinfectant solutions, and potential biocide/antibiotic cross-resistance. In addition, it has been shown that the use of contaminated cloths and/or solutions promotes the spread of microorganisms between different environments [