A new report entitled “Cleaning Hospital Room Surfaces to Prevent HCAIs” reveals the lack of knowledge on “proper cleaning” of a patient's room – but also illustrates the problems of misleading terminology. Han et al say “Very little research addresses the best ways to disinfect and sanitize hard surfaces in a hospital room”, The report reviews 80 studies published between 1998 and 2014. A media report says ”The investigators found only 5 randomized, controlled trials that explored the best ways to disinfect surfaces. Fewer than 35% of the studies focused on infection rates or spread of disease due to unclean surfaces and most studies only examined the effectiveness of a single cleaning product or method, rather than comparing it against others.
In the introduction, the authors say “Environmental cleaning is a complex, multifaceted process and involves the physical action of cleaning surfaces to remove organic and inorganic material, followed by application of a disinfectant. i.e. cleaning is cleaning and disinfection?
We must stop using the term "cleaning" to mean either "removal by physical cleaning" and "cleaning and disinfection" and the term "unclean" to mean either " presence of visible dirt" or "contaminated".
Read more at
Han JH et al Cleaning Hospital Room Surfaces to Prevent Health Care–Associated infections. Annals of Internal Medicine 2015 Aug 11 issue.