Let me be clear, UVC terminal disinfection of hospital rooms is no panacea, especially when it comes to the prevention of Clostridium difficile infections.Our biggest impact on reducing Clostridium difficile at VCU Health comes from minimizing over testing through electronic medical record decision support. This includes hard stops on Clostridium difficile test orders for patients receiving laxatives.
Our experience with UVC light terminal room disinfection, particularly in bone marrow transplant and oncology populations was recently published, PubMed indexed here. Using an interrupted time series analysis, we observed a significant decrease in Clostridium difficile infection rates following the deployment of UVC light disinfection in these specific wards.
The next frontier in Clostridium difficile reduction is class restriction of antibiotics. This is only feasible with expansion of antimicrobial stewardship programs to 7 days a week coverage.
Stay tuned.
