Curtains that go around a patient’s hospital bed to provide privacy – privacy curtains – are often tainted with harmful bacteria, such as MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) and VRE (vancomycin-resistant enterococcus), researchers ftom the University of Iowa reported at the 51st Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, Chicago. The scientists added that there is growing concern about the role hospital environments play in causing potentially life-threatening infections.
Dr. Michael Ohl and team were surprised at how quickly the curtains became contaminated. 12 out of 13 freshly-washed curtain were contaminated with potentially very harmful bacteria within 7 days.
If they washed their hands, then touched the curtains, and then the patients, all their other preventive measures are compromised
The team gathered 180 swab cultures twice a week for three weeks. They tested 43 separate privacy curtains in 30 rooms, including 8 medical ICUs, 7 surgical ICUs, and 15 medical wards. Curtains were marked so that the investigators would know when they were replaced with freshly-washed ones. They used standard culture methods to test for contamination with MRSA, Staphylococcus aureus, Enterococcus spp., VER (vancomycin-resistant enterococcus, or aerobic gram-negative rods.
Below are some highlighted results:
- 92% (12 out of 13) were contaminated within 7 days of being washed
- 95% of the curtains were contaminated at least once
- MRSA, also known as the superbug, was found in 21% of the curtains
- VRE was found in 42% of the curtains
- 8 curtains were found to be contaminated with VRE more than once – 3 with persistence of a single genetic type and 5 with different types over time. This suggest the curtains were recontaminated.
- 66% of cultures were positive for either gram-negative rods (22%), Enterococcus spp. (44%), or S. aureus (26%)
The Iowa team urge hospital staff to follow strict hand-hygiene practices after touching privacy curtains, especially if they are about to touch a patient. Unfortunately, a considerable number of health care providers wash their hands first, touch the curtains, and then touch their patients. The researchers added that privacy curtains can hang for a long time before they are washed.
Hospitals should look at ways of preventing contamination of privacy curtains, they added.
The study was funded by PurThread, a company that makes antimicrobial-resistant fabrics for hospital, clinics and doctors’ offices.
Written by Christian Nordqvist