CDC webinar on cleaning surfaces in long-term care to stop COVID-19: transcript

Key points

• Nursing home and assisted living residents are among the most vulnerable to severe COVID-19 because of age and frailty.
• The virus can spread through contaminated surfaces; it can survive for hours to days, while C. diff and E. coli can survive for months.
• High-touch surfaces such as door handles, light switches and bed rails, and shared equipment such as stethoscopes, blood pressure cuffs and walkers, are high risk.
• Clean in a consistent pattern, from clean to dirty and top to bottom, and clean high-touch surfaces at least once every shift.
• Assign staff responsibility for each item, know which products the facility uses, clean before disinfecting, and follow the contact time.
• Build surface cleaning into daily workflow, such as wiping bedside tables and call buttons around meal delivery.

Chapters

1. 0:01Why residents are vulnerable to COVID-19
2. 1:10How germs survive on surfaces
3. 2:21High-touch surfaces and shared equipment
4. 2:56Cleaning process and frequency
5. 3:56Assigning staff responsibility for cleaning
6. 4:59Products, cleaning steps and contact time
7. 5:43Building cleaning into workflow and closing

Full transcript

0:01Hello, my name is Namali Stone, and I'm one of the CDC leads for the COVID-19 response in long-term care. Today, we're going to talk about how SparkLink services stop the spread of COVID-19 and discuss the importance of cleaning and disinfection practices. This is part of the CDC COVID-19 prevention messages for frontline long-term care staff. As you know, the residents cared for in nursing homes and assisted living facilities are among the most vulnerable to COVID-19. Because of their age and frailty, these residents are more likely to have severe infections, leading to hospitalization and death. For this reason, we must all take action now to protect them. The virus that causes COVID-19 is primarily spread from person

1:10to person, but did you know that this virus can also be spread by indirect contact With contaminated surfaces, surfaces that are touched more frequently increase the chance that germs can be spread to other residents or staff. While surfaces may look clean like the ones shown in this picture, unseen pathogens may still be lurking.

1:42Environmental and equipment surfaces create an opportunity for viruses and bacteria to survive. And as you can see in the picture on this slide, these germs can survive for some very long periods of time. The coronavirus causing COVID-19 has been shown to survive on surfaces for several hours to days. Other germs like C. diff and E. coli can survive for months.

2:21methicillin-resistant staph aureus or MRSA has been found to survive on common surfaces in nursing homes like door knobs, bed rails, and nursing carts. The images on these pictures show high touch surfaces that are handled all the time as we go in and out of resident rooms. The door handles, light switches, bedpan cleaners, and toilet handles are frequently handled and can become contaminated easily.

2:56Other high risk surfaces include the shared equipment that is used on multiple different residents throughout the day. things like stethoscopes, blood pressure cuffs, and walkers. Think about it. How often do you touch these surfaces during your workday? Know how and when to clean surfaces. The first place to start is with creating a process for cleaning equipment and room. Following the same pattern every time makes it easier to ensure consistent cleaning. Move from clean to dirty areas and from top to bottom in order to prevent recontamination. As part of COVID prevention, Think about increasing the frequency of cleaning, especially for these high-touch surfaces.

3:56That might mean increasing cleaning to at least once during every shift, if not more. And be sure to build in time to wipe down and clean all equipment that could be shared between residents, so you don't let germs tag along for the ride. Another part of the process should be determining which staff are responsible for different pieces of equipment. When it is unclear who is responsible for cleaning and disinfection, some items can be missed entirely. To prevent that from happening, your teams can work together to note which staff, whether frontline nursing staff, clinicians, or housekeeping, will have the responsibility to clean each item and discuss how often. Once everybody knows their responsibility, it is then important to be familiar with

4:59which products are used in your facility for surface cleaning and make sure they're easily available when you need them. Know how to apply the product. First, you must clean the surface and then you apply the disinfectant. Many products need to remain on a surface for several minutes to fully kill the germs. This is called the contact time. In this picture, you can see that the facility labels the disinfectant wipes with the contact times for each product to help remind staff how long the product must remain on the surface in order to do its job.

5:43practice building surface cleaning into your workflow to minimize the number of times people have to enter a room and also to keep the surfaces as clean as possible. This can include things like wiping down the bedside tables and call buttons before or after delivering meals or wiping down the faucets and toilet rails after assisting a resident in the restroom. So remember keeping services sparkling clean protects everyone. Cleaning can keep COVID-19 from spreading in your facility and it's everyone's responsibility to support one another in order to ensure the environment where you provide care is safe for you, your colleagues, and your residents. Practice good surface cleaning both at work and at home.

6:42And keep COVID out of your home, your facility, and your community. Here are links to a variety of resources available on the CDC website. For more information about COVID-19, guidance and tools. Thanks.

Source and licence

Recording: File:LTC Mini Webinar- Sparkling Surfaces- Stop COVID-19’s Spread.webm by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2020-04-28), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.

The transcript is machine speech-to-text by the TidyTools Audio & video transcriber; the summary, key points and chapters were written by Claude from that transcript. Both may contain errors: check the recording before quoting it.