Capturing portable medical equipment disinfection data via an automated novel disinfection tracking system.

Abstract

BACKGROUND\nPortable Medical Equipment (PME) such as workstations-on-wheels (WOWs) and vital signs machines (VMs) have been linked to healthcare-associated infections. Routine visual monitoring of PME disinfection is difficult. An automated Disinfection Tracking System (DTS) was used to record and report the number of disinfection events of PME in a hospital setting.\n\n\nMETHODS\nThe study was conducted in 2 acute-care units for 25-days to determine the pattern of recorded events from DTS on PME. Devices record disinfection events as moisture events and automatically store on a central database. DTS devices with screen-on feedback and screen-off devices with no display were placed on 10 WOWs and 5 VMs on separate units.\n\n\nRESULTS\nA total of 421 moisture events were recorded for the screen-on and 345 for the screen-off , during the 25-day implementation period on the 2 different hospital units. The highest number of events occurred between 6:00am-7:00am, with 69 & 75 moisture events recorded for Units 1 and 2, respectively.\n\n\nCONCLUSIONS\nThe pattern of disinfection events for WOWs and VMs demonstrated that most events occurred regularly at the times corresponding with nursing shift change. The DTS has the potential to continuously record, and report data related to PME disinfection.