Can cleaning REACH further in reducing hospital infections?

Falling through the cracks: the invisible hospital cleaning workforce

PURPOSE

This paper explores the role of hospital cleaners and their contribution to healthcare safety. Few studies have examined the activities and input of hospital cleaners, rendering them largely invisible in healthcare research. Yet, as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has demonstrated, this sizeable workforce carries out tasks critical to healthcare facilities and wider health system functioning.

DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH

Drawing on the work of Habermas, the authors examine the literature surrounding cleaners and quality and safety in healthcare. The authors theorise cleaners' work as both instrumental and communicative and examine the perceptions of healthcare professionals and managers, as well as cleaners themselves, of healthcare professionals and managers' role and contribution to quality and safety.

FINDINGS

Cleaners are generally perceived by the literature as performing repetitive - albeit important - tasks in isolation from patients. Cleaners are not considered part of the "healthcare team" and are excluded from decision-making and interprofessional communication. Yet, cleaners can contribute to patient care; ubiquity and proximity of cleaners to patients offer insights and untapped potential for involvement in hospital safety.

ORIGINALITY/VALUE

This paper brings an overdue focus to this labour force by examining the nature and potential of their work. This paper offers a new application of Habermas' work to this domain, rendering visible how the framing of cleaners' role works to exclude this important workforce from participation in the patient safety agenda.

An overview of automated room disinfection systems: When to use them and how to choose them

Conventional disinfection methods are limited by reliance on the operator to ensure appropriate selection, formulation, distribution, and contact time of the agent. Automated room disinfection (ARD) systems remove or reduce reliance on operators and so they have the potential to improve the efficacy of terminal disinfection. The most commonly used systems are hydrogen peroxide vapor (H₂O₂ vapor), aerosolized hydrogen peroxide (aHP), and ultraviolet (UV) light. These systems have important differences in their active agent, delivery mechanism, efficacy, process time, and ease of use. The choice of ARD system should be influenced by the intended application, the evidence base for effectiveness, practicalities of implementation, and cost considerations.