What is Whole Room Disinfection?

Whole Room Disinfection is the ability of a given disinfection technology to thoroughly reach all surfaces, nooks and crannies in a room or given space that it is intended to disinfect.

Efficacy: a disinfection technology’s ability to kill bacteria wherever it reaches.

Where coverage addresses the reach of a given disinfection technology, efficacy refers to its ability to kill bacteria wherever it reaches.  When it comes to your disinfection efforts, the importance of efficacy cannot be overstated.  It takes but a few pathogens to infect a patient, so “almost disinfected “ simply isn’t enough.

The industry measures efficacy on a logarithmic scale to show the relative number of microorganisms eliminated as a result of disinfection efforts.  For every 1,000,000 microorganisms living in a hospital room, let’s take a look at the impact of each logarithmic reduction.

What’s wrong with current cleaning methods?

Despite the best efforts of EVS staff, a significant amount of potentially dangerous pathogens remain after manual cleaning of a hospital room. In fact, studies document that only 34% of high-touch surfaces are cleaned and 71% of VRE and 78% of C. diff organisms survive manual cleaning.  The most commonly used approach to healthcare facility disinfection is spraying and wiping surfaces with bleach mixtures.  Time after time, studies indicate that, at best, less than 90% of the high-touch surfaces are sprayed and that the vast majority of surfaces in the room are overlooked.  In addition, wiping increases the chances for cross-contamination.  Studies show that spray and wipe methods eliminate less than 50% of pathogens in any given environment. Furthermore, bleach mixtures emit noxious fumes that can be irritants to hospital staff and patients and the organisms these cleaning methods leave behind, sicken patients and result in extended hospital stays or readmissions, costing healthcare organizations billions of dollars in avoidable expense.

We can fix the problem!

While infection control professionals widely agree that disinfection is essential, not all disinfection systems are created equal.

Spray and wipe methods leave thousands of viable spores behind that Electrostatic Spraying would destroy. The question is . . . if you had your choice between a traditionally cleaned room, or one treated by Electrostatic Spraying . . . to which would you rather be admitted?