Impact of the Universal Use of Sporicidal Disinfectant on Clostridium difficile Infections

Abstract

BACKGROUND: The environment plays a significant role in the spread of C. diffcile infection (CDI). Often, bleach is used to disinfect rooms after they were occupied by a patient with CDI. This can result in damage to surfaces as well as a two-step cleaning process to remove residue. At our academic health center, bleach had historically been used for daily cleaning of CDI patient rooms as well as all discharge cleans with a quaternary ammonia used for daily cleaning on non-CDI rooms. We hypothesized that using a sporicidal for all daily, discharge and common area cleaning would reduce hospital onset (HO) CDI.