The NHMRC-funded Researching Effective Approaches to Cleaning in Hospitals (REACH) Study involved 11 large Australian hospitals in trialling a novel cleaning bundle initiative in 2016-2017.
Results are now published online in The Lancet Infectious Diseases; the associated media release is here.
This was a large study, involving 6133 hospital beds and 1729 environmental services staff in six states. Using Dazo UV gel dot technology, we assessed that cleaning performance improved across the 11 hospitals, in both patient bathrooms and bedrooms. We also observed improvements in several healthcare associated infections (HAIs) with the biggest decrease observed for vancomycin resistant enterococci (VRE) infections.
The study cost effectiveness results, which will inform future decision making about initiatives to improve hospital cleaning and reduce infections, have been submitted for publication.
We thank our partners and the 11 hospital sites for participating.