Hands-free faucets much more likely carry Legionella than traditional faucets
Patient Safety Monitor Alert, April 6, 2011
Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to Patient Safety Monitor Alert!
Because hands-free faucets are touched less often, it is widely assumed such faucets carry fewer germs. However, new research by Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore found that because hands-free faucets have more complicated valve systems, they are far more likely to carry Legionella bacteria, found in 50% of the hospital’s hands-free faucets, compared to just 15% in traditional faucets, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The results moved the hospital to remove hands-free faucets and replace them with traditional faucets in all patient care areas and to purchase traditional faucets for new clinical buildings set to open in 2012.
Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to Patient Safety Monitor Alert!
Related Products
-
Patient Safety Monitor
As part of your Patient Safety Monitor membership, you'll receive Briefings on Patient Safety. In this 12-page monthly...
-
Patient Safety Monitor Alert
This e-mail newsletter provides healthcare professionals with the latest patient safety news, while offering useful...
-
Patient Safety Quality Monthly
Ken Rohde, Senior Consultant for The Greeley Company with over 25 years of experience in quality management. His roles in...
-
Creating a Just Culture: A Nurse Leader's Guide
This practical resource explains the process of creating and sustaining a just culture in which staff members are encouraged...
-
Occurrence Reporting:
Take advantage of the information occurrence reports provide and make sustainable enhancements at your facility. Expert...
Most Popular
- Articles
-
- Featured blog post: Nurses face felony charges after reporting physician to the Texas Medical Board
- Topic: CMS, OESS post new security compliance review information, checklist
- Q/A: Volume requirement for reporting hydration services
- HIPAA Q&A: Answering service messages
- News and briefs: Oklahoma Osteopathic Association against residency bill change
- What does case-mix index mean to you?
- QA:Coding multiple initial infusions
- OB services: Coding inside and outside of the package
- State medical board will hear unprofessional charges against OB-GYN
- The debate continues: Nurses who reported physician to the Texas Medical Board file federal appeal
- E-mailed
-
- Featured blog post: Nurses face felony charges after reporting physician to the Texas Medical Board
- Are your workforce members texting PHI?
- Q&A: Coding for protein malnutrition
- Q&A tackles coding questions about injections and infusions
- Joint Commission Center announces handoff communication solutions
- Inside best practice: Reduce patient falls with a stoplight
- Identify modifiable risk factors to prevent patient falls
- Hospitalist-surgeon comanagement has no effect on outcomes
- Don't let these sentinel events trigger falsely
- Avoid the trap of probable diagnoses
- Searched