American journal of infection control
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Am J Infect Control · Sep 2018
Multicenter StudyGuiding hand hygiene interventions among future healthcare workers: implications of knowledge, attitudes, and social influences.
Medical students in their clinical years play an important role in healthcare delivery, yet poor levels of hand hygiene (HH) compliance in this population raise the risk for propagating nosocomial infections. To date, there has been a lack of dedicated interventions showing sustainable improvements in HH in this population. ⋯ Our results call for a multifaceted approach to improve HH compliance among medical students, by ensuring adequate HH supplies/hand sanitizers, providing HH training in curricula, and effecting a cultural change mediated by professional modeling and open communication.
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Am J Infect Control · Sep 2018
Environmental effectiveness of pulsed-xenon light in the operating room.
Manual cleaning and disinfection of the operating room (OR) environment may be inadequate due to human error. No-touch technologies, such as pulsed-xenon ultraviolet light (PX-UV), can be used as an adjunct to manual cleaning processes to reduce surface contamination in the OR. This article reports the cumulative results from 23 hospitals across the United States that performed microbiologic validation of PX-UV disinfection after manual cleaning. ⋯ When used after the manual cleaning process, the PX-UV device significantly reduced contamination on high-touch surfaces in the OR.