Case Sharing: Modern Decontamination Room

Standardized management of decontamination rooms in the ward is one of the measures to control nosocomial infection. In traditional decontamination rooms, manual disinfection by soaking in chlorine-based disinfectant is the most common method. However, with the development of medical treatment and the deeper awareness of infection control during disinfection, some hospitals have replaced chemical disinfection with automatic bedpan washer, and the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University is one of them.

The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University is a large Grade III Level A general hospital that integrates medical treatment, teaching, and scientific research. It continuously improves its medical service capability, optimizes the medical environment, and pays close attention to preventing and controlling nosocomial infection. Its ICU ward, as one of the key departments monitoring nosocomial infection, represents the best in the medical field of Zhejiang in all aspects, such as hardware facilities, medical level, and talent construction.

At the end of 2022, the Comprehensive Group of the Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism of the State Council issued the Guidelines for the Expansion and Transformation of Critical Care Beds, which proposed to accelerate the construction and upgrading of comprehensive ICU monitoring units. However, the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University completed the corresponding configuration a few years ago, including installing bedpan sterilizer in the hepatobiliary & Pancreatic ICU.

The bedpan washer disinfectors for hospitals, unlike the traditional decontamination room, can be used by ICU medical staff to dump, clean, and disinfect the items used by patients in time. The urinals and bed pans, after being disinfected (A0 value ≥ 600), are neatly placed on hanging racks, ensuring their cleanliness and creating an ultra-clean diagnosis and treatment space for doctors and patients.

At the same time, rational space, process-oriented work, as well as the establishment of an effective micro-hygienic cycle in the ward have improved the hospital's disinfection and infection control in the ward capabilities, better safeguarding the health and safety of patients and medical staff.