---
title: Disinfection Selection Made Easy
description: Disinfection Selection Made Easy
---

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## Something Powerful

# Resources

 

 

## Disinfection Selection Made Easy

<http://static1.squarespace.com/static/595689fc9de4bbc892200518/t/59568acb5fd63b5f2928781a/1498845460877//img.png.com/static/595689fc9de4bbc892200518/t/59568acb5fd63b5f2928781a/1498843851682/1000w/>

As I had alluded to in the opening blog for 2014, this is  
 the year of themes.  The theme for the  
 first quarter (Q1) of 2014 was pretty obvious - pathogens, bugs, or whatever  
 name you would like to give the pesky critters that cause us to lose sleep over  
 managing outbreaks and HAIs.  Have you  
 picked up the theme for Q2?  It's the  
 story of how to choose a disinfectant, or in the very least areas that should  
 and need to be considered outside of focusing on what a product kills and what  
 a product costs so that the most effective environmental hygiene program can be  
 justified to the powers that be.

It's a story that Lee and I have been weaving throughout  
 our blogs since we started back in [May of 2011](http://talkcleantome.blogspot.ca/2011/05/blog-is-born.html) when we introduced the Talk Clean  
 To Me blog and our mantra of clearing away the haze of smoke and mirrors  
 marketing that surrounds disinfectants.   
As Lee discussed in last week's blog "[The little devil or the little angel, which do you choose?](http://talkcleantome.blogspot.ca/2014/05/the-little-devil-or-little-angel-which.html)" developing the business case to  
 justify moving to a new disinfectant is not as easy as one would hope.  The unfortunate truth being that it is more  
 often than not easier to remain as the status quo then trying to be that fish  
 swimming upstream.

Here's where we hope we can help.  For those of you who have seen Lee or I  
 speak, the picture used for this week's blog is a slide that is used in almost  
 EVERY one of our presentations.  If you  
 look back through our blogs, we have written one on virtually every topic:  
[Strength is not always found in numbers](http://talkcleantome.blogspot.ca/2011/08/strength-is-not-always-found-in-numbers.html), [Dirty to Disinfected in 60 seconds flat](http://talkcleantome.blogspot.ca/2011/06/dirty-to-disinfected-in-60-seconds-flat.html), [To Clean or Not to Clean](http://talkcleantome.blogspot.ca/2011/06/to-clean-or-not-to-clean.html), [Is PPE the necessary evil?](http://talkcleantome.blogspot.ca/2014/04/is-ppe-necessary-evil.html), [What's in Your Bottle?](http://talkcleantome.blogspot.ca/2011/07/whats-in-your-bottle.html) and [The Unintentional Consequences of Improving Infection Prevention](http://talkcleantome.blogspot.ca/2012/02/unintentional-consequences-of-improving.html),  
 and while we recognize the importance of understanding the theory we have gone  
 to provide the tools to simplify things and help you make the right decision  
 for your facility.

Selection of a disinfectant really can be made as simple  
 as tabling out the desired traits of a disinfectant and adding any criteria  
 that is specific to the needs of your hospital.   
You can in turn develop  a rating  
 system that would allow you to more objectively look at the overall picture and  
 how the product answers the needs of your facility - keeping in mind of course  
 that you'll never have a single product for everything...well unless of course  
 you want to be dealing with calls over ruined surfaces due to material  
 compatibility or occupational health and safety complaints associated with  
 occupational injury from inappropriate use of a product!   Here's  
 a snap shot of what my table would look like (click here for the full  
[Disinfectant Product Assessment Tool](https://www.viroxanimalhealth.com/hubfs/PTS_LLD_and_ILD_Disinfectant_Assessment_Tool_Nov_2015.pdf)).

<http://static1.squarespace.com/static/595689fc9de4bbc892200518/t/59568acb5fd63b5f2928781c/1498845461077//img.jpg.com/static/595689fc9de4bbc892200518/t/59568acb5fd63b5f2928781c/1498843851683/1000w/>

From an evaluation perspective, a Likert Scale can be  
 used that assigns values from 1 to 5 such as the following:

| **1 ** | **2 ** | **3 ** | **4 ** | **5 ** |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| **Product Does Not Meet Needs ** | **Product Somewhat Meets Needs ** | **Neutral ** | **Product Mostly Meets Needs ** | **Product Meets Needs ** |

 Upon completion of the full Assessment Tool, you can then  
 calculate a numerical rating:

<http://static1.squarespace.com/static/595689fc9de4bbc892200518/t/59568acb5fd63b5f2928781e/1498845465865//img.jpg.com/static/595689fc9de4bbc892200518/t/59568acb5fd63b5f2928781e/1498843851683/1000w/>

Voila! You now have a comprehensive and reasonably  
 objective Disinfectant Product Assessment Tool that can be used to compare  
 product to product.  Certainly, bias may  
 come through if say you have a better relationship with one supplier than  
 another or if (as Lee stated last week) you play the part of the Devil by  
 simple inactivity or complacency of not wanting to go through the effort of  
 converting to a safer and more effective disinfectant.  But, if you take the time to work though this  
 assessment tool using the EPA Approved label and product MSDS, you may be  
 surprised by what choice you make!

*Bugging Off! *

Nicole

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