---
title: Do you know who cleans your Clinical Workstations?
description: Do you know who cleans your Clinical Workstations?
---

<https://www.viroxanimalhealth.com/resources>

# [Do you know who cleans your Clinical Workstations?](https://www.viroxanimalhealth.com/resources/talkcleantome/2015/12/do-you-know-who-cleans-your-clinical.html)

 Written by [Nicole Kenny](https://www.viroxanimalhealth.com/resources/author/nicole-kenny) | Dec 11, 2015 8:21:00 PM

<http://static1.squarespace.com/static/595689fc9de4bbc892200518/t/59568ac95fd63b5f2928769a/1498845291139//img.jpg.com/static/595689fc9de4bbc892200518/t/59568ac95fd63b5f2928769b/1498843849539/1000w/>

One of the common questions during many of the [presentations  
 that I give](http://www.infectioncontroltoday.com/digital-summits/2014/11/emerging-pathogens/sessions.aspx?s=fb96dd2294da4194aa91be5c270d6d47) is asking if you know who cleans what.  As you’d likely suspect, the answers vary  
 significantly.  The reason I call this  
 out as an important consideration for your infection prevention program is to  
 remind everyone that our jobs are not done once we have chosen what we think  
 the optimal disinfectant is, and this I know for fact. 

The story I usually share is one about a commode.  It’s a true story.  It’s one that occurred during a clinical  
 study I was working on, which was focusing on the cleaning of patient rooms  
 comparing the cleaning compliance in a patient room with diarrhea, versus a  
 patient room with confirmed *C. difficile*.  We were [focusing on toilets](http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2334/10/268)  
 (and commodes) so we put a UV marker on the underside of the toilet or commode  
 seat.  After several days in a *C. diff* positive patient room the study  
 researcher called the nursing and environmental services (EVS) staff together  
 to discuss the fact that for several consecutive days she was finding that the  
 commode in a particular room had not be cleaned (it had the same piece of feces  
 on it), and none of the UV markers had been removed.  As you may guess the question was asked in  
 terms of who is cleaning the commode.   
 The nursing staff said “not us”.   
 It’s a toilet, that’s the responsibility of EVS.  The EVS staff said “not us”.  It’s on wheels, that’s considered portable patient  
 care equipment.  I think you get the  
 picture.  Without communicating and  
 setting clear roles and responsibilities things get overlooked.

Knowing this, the findings of a study recently published in  
 AJIC titled “[A  
 pilot study into locating the bad bugs in a busy intensive care unit](http://www.ajicjournal.org/article/S0196-6553(15)00764-6/abstract)” did  
 not surprise me.  The researchers wanted  
 to find out where multi-drug resistant (MDRO) organisms were lurking in spite  
 of the environmental cleaning practices.   
 To do so, the researchers traced the steps of healthcare workers between  
 their workstations and patient bedsides then sampled high touched surfaces they  
 found in the path of the healthcare worker.   
 What they found was that many of the high touch surfaces identified in  
 the path of the healthcare worker, such as the chairs, clipboards, keyboards,  
 telephones and computer mouse found at the clinical workstation, were  
 contaminated with MDROs.  Perhaps more  
 surprising was that when they dug a little deeper, these surfaces were not  
 included in the EVS cleaning protocols.

The long and the short is developing a cleaning and  
 disinfectant program is not simply about what a product kills, what the contact  
 time is or if EVS staff are achieving 80% or higher cleaning compliance.  Developing an effective cleaning and  
 disinfectant program also needs to ensure that everyone who works in a space  
 and is responsible for keeping that space clean needs to get together, look at  
 every surface in the unit – patient room and otherwise - and come to an agreement  
 on who cleans what and with what frequency.   
 If we do not have clear roles and responsibilities, studies like this  
 one will continue to be published and HAIs will continue to flourish.  We need to think beyond the obvious.  By focusing on the unobvious, we’ll really  
 move the needle in stopping HAIs and saving lives.

*  
*

*Bugging Off!*

Nicole

PS – What happens if an EVS is cleaning a room, but the  
 patient has used the toilet and has a note on file that a doctor / nurse needs  
 to see it before its flushed?  Do you  
 really think the EVS person is going to have time to come back and clean?  Do you think the clinical staff will notify  
 EVS that the toilet can be cleaned?  Who  
 should clean the toilet in this situation?   
 I ask because I’ve seen it.....and the toilet did not get cleaned and  
 this was a semi-private room.  Gross right?

[View full post](https://www.viroxanimalhealth.com/resources/talkcleantome/2015/12/do-you-know-who-cleans-your-clinical.html)

```json
{
  "@context" : "http://schema.org",
  "@type" : "BlogPosting",
  "author" : {
    "@type" : "Person",
    "name" : "Nicole Kenny"
  },
  "dateModified" : "2019-03-04T15:23:20.991Z",
  "datePublished" : "2015-12-11T20:21:00Z",
  "headline" : "Do you know who cleans your Clinical Workstations?",
  "image" : {
    "@type" : "ImageObject",
    "height" : 60,
    "url" : "/hs/hsstatic/content_shared_assets/static-1.4092/img/default-amp-logo.png",
    "width" : 60
  },
  "mainEntityOfPage" : "https://www.viroxanimalhealth.com/resources/talkcleantome/2015/12/do-you-know-who-cleans-your-clinical.html",
  "publisher" : {
    "@type" : "Organization",
    "logo" : {
      "@type" : "ImageObject",
      "height" : 60,
      "url" : "/hs/hsstatic/content_shared_assets/static-1.4092/img/default-amp-logo.png",
      "width" : 60
    },
    "name" : "Virox-Animal-Health-Resources"
  }
}
```