Emily Pacholski

The value of ready-to-use disinfectant wipes: compliance, employee time, and costs.

Cleaning and disinfection practices of environmental surfaces are critical interventions for reducing health care-associated infections. We studied the value of ready-to-use cleaning and disinfection wipes compared with the traditional towel and bucket method. When using ready-to-use wipes, we found compliance to be significantly higher, a more rapid cleaning and disinfection process, and potential cost savings. Facilities should consider these products when making environmental services product selections.

The role of infection prevention conferences to build and maintain knowledge-sharing networks: A longitudinal evaluation

Well-connected knowledge-sharing networks (KSNs) of infection preventionists are vital to the profession. Face-to-face networking during conferences is considered critical to build and maintain KSNs; however, this has never been formally studied. We used a pre-post survey design to evaluate the effect of a regional infection prevention meeting on the KSNs. We found that the meeting did not alter the KSNs of infection preventionists. Current meeting structures should be re-evaluated with a goal to improve KSNs.

A single genotype of Acinetobacter baumannii expresses multiple antibiotic susceptibility phenotypes

It is common practice to define a bacterium with unequal antibiotic susceptibility phenotypes as a different genotype. Here, we describe the utility of this practice for Acinetobacter baumannii. We determined antibiotic susceptibility for 19 clinical isolates of A baumannii. Repetitive sequence polymerase chain reaction method was used to determine genotypes. Although all isolates were of the same genotype, 79% were predicted to be different based on susceptibility patterns. The antibiotic susceptibility phenotype does not accurately predict the genotype of A baumannii.