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Rochester Regional Health, Rochester, New York, is committed to providing safe, high quality patient care. With the assistance of jan/san distributor Johnston, Auburn, New York, and Bull'sEye/Henson, a manufacturer rep group based in Hershey, Pennsylvania, Rochester Regional Health invested in electrostatic technology with the Clorox Total 360 System by CloroxPro. The system adds to the existing cleaning and disinfecting protocols and has helped enhance infection prevention and patient safety during a difficult flu season.
There were as many as 32.8 million cases of the flu, 15.4 million flu-related medical visits, and up to 41,500 deaths caused by the flu nationwide this past season. Flu activity spiked by 10 percent in Monroe County during the week of March 16 as a late season flu continued to affect New York.
Infection prevention is critical in busy hospitals and emergency rooms, especially during periods of high-intensity flu activity. At Rochester Regional Health, patient and visitor safety is always top of mind, and the proactive investment in the Clorox Total 360 System continued to help the environmental services department fight the spread of flu and enhance the disinfection protocols for vulnerable hospitalized patients.
The Clorox Total 360 System combines electrostatic technology with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)-registered Clorox disinfecting and sanitizing solutions. It works by charging the solution so that when sprayed, it is attracted to and uniformly coats surfaces, including hard-to-reach areas that conventional cleaning methods might miss.
With this technology, Rochester Regional Health achieves comprehensive surface treatment of up to 18,000 square feet per hour, helping ensure all areas of the 525-bed acute-care facility are properly disinfected.
"At Rochester Regional Health, we take infection prevention very seriously," says Melissa Bronstein, MPA, BSN, RN, CIC director, infection prevention and control at Rochester Regional Health. "With the recent flu outbreak in our community, we knew we needed to boost our protocols to ensure our facilities could maintain the standard of care we put forth throughout the rest of the year. Investing in the Clorox Total 360 System serves as a useful adjunct to our rigorous standards for providing a clean environment for patients."
Rochester Regional Health uses the system daily throughout the facility. The system is used to provide an additional layer of protection following discharge cleaning in all patient isolation rooms, as well as in high-risk areas like the emergency department and operating rooms and high-traffic spaces such as waiting areas, elevators, staff offices, public restrooms and surfaces including wheelchairs and gurneys.
"Our team consists of 160 employees who work around the clock to maintain the hospital," says Liz Follaco, operations manager of environmental services at Rochester Regional Health. "We've included the Clorox Total 360 System in our daily cleaning regimen — starting at 4 a.m. and covering every inch of the facility by the end of the day. Since the inception of the system, our staff feels empowered knowing they're going the extra mile to properly disinfect the hospital and safeguard our patient's environments."