Providing the best possible cleaning and maintaining high standards is a difficult task to manage. A number of different people and processes are often involved throughout the process from cleaning to validation (usually confirmed by visual assessment). Russell Collins (decontamination manager of Solent Healthcare, Portsmouth) has taken a different approach to monitoring his team’s standards of cleanliness of community equipment. By using Hygiena Internationals SystemSURE Plus ATP monitoring system, Russell and his team can now ensure very high standards of cleaning are constantly achieved. The evidence of this is provided by Hygiena SureTrend software reports.
The Hygiena SystemSURE Plus ATP hygiene monitoring tool is a post-cleaning verification device that measures how much organic material is left behind on a surface after cleaning. This organic debris contains ATP. The protocol is easy to follow; the test surface is swabbed after cleaning to collect any organic debris that may have been left behind. The swab is activated through simply snapping and squeezing and then inserted inside the handheld luminometer. The luminometer measures the level of ATP in the organic debris collected. The result is a numerical value where the higher the number generated the dirtier the surface is.
Results are available in just 15 seconds, allowing immediate corrective action to be taken if necessary, such as re-cleaning. The results can then be transferred from the handheld luminometer to your computer by a simple upload cable. This allows the user to complete further data analysis and generate full graphical reports. The data can also be archived and will also provide an historical record over time. Evidence is in place to ensure high cleaning standards are achieved and maintained.
Russell purchased the SystemSURE Plus to provide constant management information to ensure the best standards were obtained: “I could see that Hygiena’s SystemSURE could be used for healthcare and would give me the information I needed. Being able to assess the process mattered to me. We don’t want low or medium, we want high standards, but we needed to prove what we were achieving.”
The SystemSURE Plus has been validated and incorporated into the team’s daily monitoring of cleaned community equipment. It gives the team a real sense of achievement and lets them know they are doing an excellent job.
The instrument at Portsmouth has been set up with a pass/fail limit of 100 relative light units (RLU) and anything that obtains a result higher than 100 is sent back for reprocessing. This means that Russell and his team can be sure that the equipment really is clean before it is used again.
When asked about the benefits the SystemSURE Plus has brought to Solent Healthcare Russell replied: “It’s a better value proposition; really cost-effective [compared to the previous outsourcing of the cleaning procedure] and a confirmation that we’re achieving the high standards we’ve set ourselves. There’s no tie-in to a contract and it fits our need perfectly. I’d recommend it to anyone.”
The software comes complete with 40 preset reports that will generate bar/line graphs and pie charts so that the information can be easily incorporated into end of month reports. These graphs can be printed directly from the software or added to work documents or emails to give instant feedback about the cleaning practices.
If you would like to receive more information about the SystemSURE Plus luminometer please contact Hygiena or visit their website.