[Criteria for the evaluation of environmental hygiene]

The process of rationalizing resources brought the health care institutions and hospitals to let out some services, including the cleaning and sanitation services. In order to write the tender the hospital had to specify both the expected standard of service (i.e. what should be cleaned, how, how many times etc) and the evaluation criteria. The experiences of two community hospitals (Vigevano and Garbagnate) are presented, focusing on the method and criteria they adopted. In both experiences the head nurses were the main responsible for the definition of the criteria, the forms and the process of evaluation. Garbagnate hospital gave priority to outcome criteria (i.e. lack of dust on surfaces, lack of spots on heaters etc.). The 84 criteria identified were divided as follows: 7 criteria for the structure and resources, 6 for the process and 71 for the outcome, with a yes-no-not applicable evaluation. The focus of the other hospital was on process criteria (to be assessed on a 5 points Likert scale, from absent to 100% compliance) and on the knowledge-educational level of the personnel responsible for the cleaning.