Hospitals’ Dirty Little Secret Revealed

How many patients have you used your stethoscope on today? How many hands have touched that pen you’re about to hand to your next patient? While stethoscopes and pens are essential items in every hospital, they’re often over looked as potential vectors of bacteria. Studies show that these two items are notorious nosocomials – spreading bacteria and germs no matter how compliant you are with handwashing and hand sanitizer use.

Did you know that the average pen will have 8 owners, each with multiple users, during its lifetime?

And while most clinicians acknowledge that stethoscopes can pass germs from one patient to the next, most don’t regularly disinfect their stethoscopes.2

In a nutshell, if you’re not disinfecting pens and stethoscopes regularly, you’re making it easier for germs to travel from room to room and patient to patient, not to mention making it a lot harder to fight HAIs.

What to Do
In the never-ending fight against the spread of infection, the time has come to sanitize every fomite, including pens and stethoscopes, that is touched by more than one person.

A Pricey Option
If your budget allows, going the “single-patient-use” route is one option. But that’s often cost-prohibitive when you start looking at the volume needed to meet demand, even for pens.

An Inconvenient Option
Disinfecting these instruments between patients is more economical, but fraught with issues like compliance and finding a disinfectant that doesn’t damage the pen or stethoscope.

The Cost-Effective, Convenient Option
CleanPen and CleanStethoscope are two-in-one holders & sanitizers that eliminate more than 99% of germs and bacteria without harming the pen or the stethoscope.

By simply housing your pen or stethoscope in their anti-microbial ports, they’re sanitized every time they’re used. Automatically.

cleanpen ML14605 cleanstethoscope - ML14603

    Stats on HAIs1

  • ~1.7 million HAIs occur annually
  • Attributable per patient costs are as much as $25,903
  • Annual aggregate direct medical hospital patient costs are as much as $45 billion

   Stats on Stethoscopes

  • In a study examining 61 stethoscopes in an outpatient setting, 100% were found to be contaminated.2
  • 76% of PAs and Physicians surveyed believed that infection transmission occurs via stethoscopes, but only 24% reported disinfecting after every use.3
  • Increasing access to disinfection materials and visual reminders in health care facilities may improve stethoscope disinfection practices.3

   Stats on Pens

  • 91.66% of pens used by healthcare workers showed positive growth of organisms while 71.84% of pens used by non-healthcare workers showed positive growth.4
  • Pens can transmit S. aureus, E. coli, P. aeruginosa and Klebsiella4
  • The risk of transmission of healthcare-associated pathogens can be decreased with the use of an alcohol-based sanitizing agent.5
Sources
1Centers for Disease Control. The Direct Medical Costs of Healthcare-Associated Infections in U.S. Hospitals and the Benefits of Prevention.
2 The Journal of Physician Assistant Education. Contamination Level of Stethoscopes Used By Physicians and Physician Assistants.
3 American Journal of Infection Control. Predictors of Stethoscope Disinfection Among Pediatric Health Care Providers.
4 Online Journal of Health & Allied Sciences. Pen of Health Care Worker as Vector of Infection.
5 Clinical Microbiology and Infection. Bacterial Colonization on Writing Pens Touched by Healthcare Professionals
and Hospitalized Patients with and Without Cleaning the Pen with Alcohol-Based Hand Sanitizing Agent.