Current Guidance for C. diff Disinfection in Health Care Facilities

Barley Chironda, RPN, CIC, infection control specialist at Clorox Healthcare, discusses current guidance for disinfection practices against C. diff.

Interview Transcript (modified slightly for readability):

“As for the current guidance that is important right now as far as disinfection and Clostridium difficile (C. diff), I’ll lump them into the 2 different ones that are available around the world, because I tend to do a lot of work around the world.

The most important ones in the United States alone are the Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee (HICPAC) document, which was made I think 10 or 12 years ago; there are also documents through the Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA).

What these 2 documents really speak to is that you need to have a disinfectant that has been checked and assessed to be sporicidal. And so, when you have a patient who has C. diff, all of those rooms need to be cleaned thoroughly with a sporicidal disinfectant. That’s one key unifying theme in most of those documents.

In addition to that, they recommend that you have to wash your hands thoroughly with soap and water because if you use an alcohol-based sanitizer, sometimes, it doesn’t get to all the nooks and crannies. But that physical, mechanical action of washing your hands is really what you need to do.

And so, narrowing it down really to the guidance documents, you want to be doing those 2 key things. First, thorough disinfection with a sporicidal agent and then you also want to do handwashing with the necessary soap and water.”