Cleaning the grey zones of hospitals: A prospective, crossover, interventional study.

Background: Environmental cleaning is a fundamental principle of infection prevention in hospitals, but its role in reducing transmission of health care-acquired pathogens has been difficult to prove experimentally. In this study we analyze the influence of cleaning previously uncleaned patient care items, grey zones (GZ), on health care-acquired transmission rates.

Methods: The intervention consisted of specific GZ cleaning by an extra cleaner (in addition to routine cleaning) on 2 structurally different acute care medical wards for a period of 6 months each, in a crossover design.

The role of gowns in preventing nosocomial transmission of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA): gown use in MRSA control.

During a 2-year period, a standard isolation protocol for control of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus was compared with a similar protocol in which gowns were not used but the availability of alcohol-based hand disinfectant was increased. Intervention wards had 0.10 fewer new MRSA transmissions per ward per month, compared with control wards (P was not significant).

Environmental risk factors for delirium in hospitalized older people.

Objectives: To evaluate the relationship of environmental risk factors in hospitals to changes over time in delirium symptom severity scores.

Design: Observational prospective clinical study with repeated measurements, several times during the first week of hospitalization and then weekly during hospitalization.

Setting: University-affiliated general community hospital.