{"id":1459,"date":"2013-10-23T14:50:09","date_gmt":"2013-10-23T18:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/52.229.122.34\/en\/?p=1459"},"modified":"2021-02-17T15:06:51","modified_gmt":"2021-02-17T20:06:51","slug":"housekeeping-detective-work-ensures-clean-patient-rooms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/uncategorized\/housekeeping-detective-work-ensures-clean-patient-rooms\/","title":{"rendered":"Housekeeping detective work ensures clean patient rooms"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text-center\"><em>Housekeeping Supervisor David Mullin dabs a fluorescent solution on high-touch areas in patient rooms and washrooms. After the housekeeper cleans, Mullin uses an ultraviolet light to see if all the dab marks were removed.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>David Mullin moves around a patient room, shining an ultraviolet light over the high-touch areas such as the light switch, call-bell and bed, searching for any telltale fluorescent residue that wasn\u2019t scrubbed off.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPatients are very impressed that we\u2019re doing this kind of auditing,\u201d said Mullin, one of the housekeeping supervisors who conduct regular audits. Earlier, he went around the room dabbing a fluorescent solution on the 19 high-touch areas. After the room was cleaned by a housekeeper, Mullin checked to see how well the job was done and entered the data on his iPad.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey pass 90 percent of the time,\u201d said Housekeeping Manager Julie Lavergne, who reviews the statistics and uses them to re-educate housekeeping staff when needed. \u201cIt really shows if someone is disinfecting the high-contact areas, where the transfer of bacteria is most likely to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>If 80 percent of the marks have been thoroughly removed, then the cleaning passes inspection.&nbsp;All remaining marks will be recleaned by the housekeeper.&nbsp;If the room falls below 80 percent, the entire room will be recleaned. Washrooms are similarly marked and inspected; high-touch areas include the flusher handle, dispensers, sink and door handle.<\/p>\n<p>Although these audits have been used for nearly two years, the Housekeeping Department recently changed the cleaning process and implemented a robust reporting system, which has helped to bring down infection rates. Extra audits are added during infectious outbreaks.<\/p>\n<p>Lavergne said the audits are an effective way to monitor and improve cleanliness, and ensure our hospital maintains a clean and safe environment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Housekeeping Supervisor David Mullin dabs a fluorescent solution on high-touch areas in patient rooms and washrooms. After the housekeeper cleans, Mullin uses an ultraviolet light to see if all the dab marks were removed. David Mullin moves around a patient room, shining an ultraviolet light over the high-touch areas such as the light switch, call-bell [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":1460,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1459\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}