Environmental Contamination with Species in Multiple Hospitals Including a Tertiary Care Hospital with a Outbreak.

Kumar J, Eilertson B, Cadnum JL, Whitlow CS, Jencson AL, Safdar N, Krein SL, Tanner WD, Mayer J, Samore MH, Donskey CJ. Environmental Contamination with Species in Multiple Hospitals Including a Tertiary Care Hospital with a Outbreak. Pathogens & immunity. 2019 Oct 28; 4(2):260-270.

Related HSR&D Project(s)

• RCS 11-222 – Research Career Scientist Award

Dimensions for VA is a web-based tool available to VA staff that enables detailed searches of published research and research projects.

If you have VA-Intranet access, click here for more information vaww.hsrd.research.va.gov/dimensions/

VA staff not currently on the VA network can access Dimensions by registering for an account using their VA email address.    Search Dimensions for VA for this citation
* Don't have VA-internal network access or a VA email address? Try searching the free-to-the-public version of Dimensions

Search for Abstract from PubMed

---

Abstract:

Background: Environmental sources have been implicated as a potential source for exogenous acquisition of species, particularly the emerging multidrug-resistant . However, limited information is available on environmental reservoirs of species in healthcare facilities. Methods: During a 6-month period, cultures for species were collected from high-touch surfaces in patient rooms and from portable equipment in 6 US acute care hospitals in 4 states. Additional cultures were collected from sink drains and floors in one of the hospitals and from high-touch surfaces, portable equipment, and sink drains in a hospital experiencing an outbreak due to species were identified using matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectometry. Results: species were recovered from patient rooms in 4 of the 6 hospitals. Seven of 147 patient room cultures (4.8%) and 1 of 57 (1.8%) portable equipment cultures were positive, with the most common species being For the hospital where additional sites were sampled, species were recovered from 8 of 22 (36.4%) hospital room floors and 4 of 17 (23.5%) sink drains. In the facility with a outbreak, species were frequently recovered from sink drains (20.7%) and high-touch surfaces (15.4%), but recovery of was uncommon (3.8% of high-touch surfaces, 3.4% of sink drains, and 0% of portable equipment) and only present in rooms that currently or recently housed a patient with . Conclusion: species often contaminate surfaces in hospitals and may be particularly common on floors and in sink drains. However, contamination was uncommon in a facility experiencing an outbreak, suggesting that current cleaning and disinfection practices can be effective in minimizing environmental contamination.