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Published on: July 13, 2019
'High-touch' surfaces are not always 'high-risk' surfaces in the intensive care unit environment
Yanlin Zheng1, Kaiwen Ni2, Shuyi Ji1
1School of Public Health, The Second Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, PR China.
Objective:
This study aimed to identify high-risk items (HRIs) in the fomite route transmission of hospital-associated infections in an intensive care unit (ICU) environment and assess their bacterial contamination levels.
Method:
A 15-day structured hand-to-surface contact observation was conducted in a 13-bed ICU at a tertiary hospital in Hangzhou, China. Directed weighted networks were constructed from contact data to identify HRIs based on centrality of the networks. Aerobic bacteria was sampled from environmental surfaces including high-touch, low-touch, high-risk, and low-risk surfaces at 9:00, 13:00, 17:00, and 20:00 over four separate days.
Results:
While there was some overlap between high-touch items (HTIs) and HRIs, HTIs were not consistently identified as HRIs. The bacterial contamination level on HRIs was found to be significantly higher than on low-risk items, but no significant difference was observed between HTIs and low-touch items on the bacterial contamination levels.
Conclusion:
The identification of HRIs through network analysis offers valuable insights for guiding more precise surface cleaning and disinfection strategies in the ICU environments. Although HTIs are commonly considered important, they are not always more contaminated.
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