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Survey: Half Re-examine Infection Control in Light of MRSA Reports

CHICAGO — Nearly half of the respondents who participated in November’s Wire survey say they’ve re-examined the infection control procedures utilized in their laundry or facility following the mainstream media’s recent coverage of MRSA-related infections in the community at large.
One-third of respondents say they’ve been solicited this year by a vendor trying to sell a product that it says is designed to combat MRSA.
We asked respondents to identify if they provide laundry service to a healthcare facility, and the overall response breaks down like this: 57.1% provide this service as an on-premise laundry; 9.5% provide service as a contracted, cooperative laundry; 9.5% provide service as a contracted, outsourced laundry; and 23.8% don’t provide such service.
No laundry service represented in the survey results has been identified as having caused or contributed to a patient’s hospital-acquired infection, according to respondents.
For slightly more than 57% of respondents, an infection control professional from their institution or for a healthcare client has conducted an assessment of their laundry service within the last six months. For 9.5%, such a visit has come within the last year. It’s been more than a year for 4.8%.
Slightly more than 14% say they’ve never received such an assessment, while 14.3% say their facility isn’t involved in healthcare.
The hot-button issue of infection control presented the opportunity to ask a couple of related questions. Nearly 86% of respondents believe that taking standard precautions effectively reduces infection rates, and only 23.8% of respondents believe it’s acceptable for a healthcare worker to launder their scrubs at home.
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Have a question or comment? E-mail our editor Matt Poe at [email protected].