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E N V I R O N M E N T A L
D I S I N F E C T I O N
poles, intravenous pumps, OR entry doors, overhead lamps and the floor. It's not a complete list, but it reflects most of the surfaces we checked for our study at our 1,500-bed teaching hospital, which has 42 ORs.
Scratching the surface
Spotty surface cleaning is not an isolated problem at our hospital, but something that occurs in most ORs, as many studies besides ours have proven. Why does this
happen? A couple reasons:
• Turnover pressures.
Pressure to turn rooms over quickly could force environmental services techs to cut corners (or, in this case, gloss over surfaces).
• Staffing issues.
Environmental services staff often don't receive adequate training to properly per-
