CloroxPro Blog – Professional Cleaning and Disinfection Insights

Last month, we featured interviews with Infection Control Professionals to gain real insight into how they protect against hospital-acquired infections. But the truth is, infection control is a team effort, and Environmental Services (EVS) providers are on the front lines of prevention. Highly trained in multiple disinfection protocols, these dedicated staff members work tirelessly in nearly every area of the facility to keep it safe for patients, staff and visitors. What are they involved in day to day, and what are the benefits that ready-to-use wipes offer them? We spoke to EVS Manager Justin Quinn to find out.

Q: Tell us about a typical day for an EVS in your facility?

A: “Days are focused on ensuring we are keeping our patients, families, and co-workers safe while they are in our care. We do this through ensuring we are following IPAC guidelines as a baseline for our cleaning standards, and ensuring we are using quality cleaning products to achieve disinfection. EVS is a service department — our team looks after more than just the cleaning duties, but also all the seemingly random duties that come up on a unit or throughout the hospital, as we seem to have knowledge on many different parts of the patient’s experience. Our full-time team members also develop relationships with our patients and their families, as EVS team members are often the ones that spend the most time in a patient room daily.”

Q: What helps you protect your facility?

A: “We continuously look for new innovations and improvements to products and services. It is great when we have the support of companies that provide us with our products to ensure it is meeting our needs, ensure we are using them properly and provide training. Education for our leaders and front-line team is also key; we need to ensure the practices we have set up are truly being followed. We listen and ask for feedback from our front-line team members, as they are the ones having to perform the work. It was key feedback from our EVS front-line team that led us moving to Clorox Healthcare® ready-to-use wipes, as they preferred the wipe quality.”

Q: What has your experience been using ready-to-use wipes compared to dilution control systems?

A: “Starting my career as a front-line team member in 2003, our EVS department was using cloths with solution in buckets. Now, our organization is using ready- to-use (RTU) wipes throughout all departments. Having RTU wipes is a game changer, from reduced kill time and ease of use, to ensuring there is not double dipping. It is a much better way to ensure you are truly cleaning and disinfecting properly.

Cost is always something that EVS programs need to be focused on, but if programs are using the right amount of cloths for the cleaning duties, there is a business case that moving to RTU wipes is cost neutral. Whether you are renting your microfiber cloths or launder your own internally, there are costs associated with both, especially if you are replacing them as expected. Internal laundry fees also need to be accounted for: equipment, chemicals, staff time and purchasing of new cloths.

Wet contact time (kill time) is another main impact; solutions have much longer wet contact times compared to RTU wipes with 1-minute wet contact time for most bacteria and viruses. We know that the 5-to-10-minute contact times are not truly happening; no EVS program has the resources to have their team members clean items while ensuring the contact time has been met. Using the RTU wipes with 1-minute kill time is a truly achievable timeframe which ensures we are truly disinfecting all surfaces. RTU wipes also eliminate the concern about team members double dipping into a pail/bucket of solution.

There are also reports about QUAT binding that occurs when using cloth and solution method — meaning, the chemical solution isn’t making it onto the surface and not providing disinfection. And if the cloths are not laundered properly and replaced as suggested, the cloths themselves are creating a potential risk.

Programs will say they are saving money by staying with cloths, but if they are not replaced as per manufacturer guidelines, then the cloths are not truly performing properly. This is providing a lesser service to patients and families which can then lead to HAIs.

Using the RTU wipes allows us to easily provide the right wipes where we need them. We can use different types and sizes depending on the cleaning requirements. CloroxPro® HP wipes are used as our daily and most common wipe. When we have C. difficile patients, we can use the CloroxPro® Bleach wipes. We also introduced CloroxPro® VersaSure™ wipes when our organization moved to digital charting, as these wipes work best with electronic equipment and ensure we are compliant with the manufacturer’s warranty.

Having RTU wipes also helps an EVS program, as other stakeholders in the organization can use the wipes to clean and disinfect their offices and more importantly clean in between patient use, without having to call an EVS team member to come and clean. We have wipes mounted to the walls in patient rooms and washrooms; this provides the wipes right at point of use. EVS cannot be everywhere or provide 24-hour coverage in all areas, so having the wipes accessible ensures disinfection is happening when needed. Using a cloth and pail of solution does not allow for this level of flexibility in a clinical setting compared to RTU wipes. Overall, RTU wipes have streamlined our cleaning process and allow us to ensure we are meeting the high standards we have for our organization.”

For your facility, choose CloroxHealthcare®.

CloroxHealthcare® Hydrogen Peroxide Cleaner Disinfectant Wipes (DIN: 02406225)^*

• Alcohol-free, bleach-free and non-corrosive
• Kills 50 bacteria and viruses in 1 minute or less, including 13 antibiotic-resistant ones.
• Kills Mycobacterium tuberculosis in 1 minute and C. auris in 3 minutes.
• Less residue, easy on surfaces, multi-surface cleaner disinfectant ideal for daily use in high turn-over areas on hard surfaces
• Available in clinical canister and EVS bucket wipe size formats

Clorox Healthcare® VersaSure™ Alcohol-Free Cleaner Disinfectant Wipes (DIN 02473151)^*

• Bleach-free, alcohol-free quat formula
• Kills 50 pathogens in 2 minutes or less (bacteria, viruses and fungi)
• Low odour, low residue, streak-free and can be used on pieces of portable and mobile healthcare facility equipment
• Available in clinical canister wipe size format

Clorox Healthcare®Bleach Germicidal Disinfectant Wipes (DIN: 02465671)^*

• Health Canada registered to kill 66 pathogens
• Kills viruses in 1 minute and bacteria in 30 seconds
• C. difficile sporicidal efficacy tested in the presence of 3-part organic soil load
• Available in clinical canister and EVS bucket wipe size formats 

^*Use as directed.

See even more benefits of CloroxHealthcare^® ready-to-use wipes here.

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