Cleaning protocol in nicu

[Julie Basilio]

How do you clean your NICU? Any Protocol?

[dawngloves, BSN, RN]

?? Call housekeeping?

[BittyBabyGrower, MSN, RN]

We use the antimicrobial wipes on all surfaces once a shift, bleach wipes if called for. We change out isolettes on non-critical kids once a week. Most of our kids are on a twice weekly or every three day weight, so when they get a weight the bed gets wiped out and linens changed...obviously more often if it is gross in there. Any room that was isolated gets a total clean from top to bottom by housekeeping and all supplies that were in the room we send to a charity (like Haiti right now).

[dawnebeth]

We do the same as the above post. Clean with anti-microbial wipes every shift and reduce clutter as much as possible. Wipe the monitors with alcohol wipes and wipe down pens and stethoscopes before use and if they drop on the floor. When I have an easy assignment, I go around the room and wipe surfaces down with the antimicrobial wipes, between visits from housekeeping. Particularly the med cart area and the breast milk area.

[Ginapixi, BSN, RN]

very interesting!!! 3 days in the NICU i have not seen house keeping or any nurse wiping any thing off and i am wondering what they did with the bean pillow that baby had kicked out of the warmer onto the floor!

[HappyBunnyNurse]

It really makes me mad when I get a baby and there is poop or blood all over the counter or incubator/warmer. But what makes me the most mad are those milk splatters inside the incubator! What a great medium for bacterial growth! Our policy says all surfaces get wiped with a cavi-wipe once a shift (and inside with plain water only). Sometimes though I can tell it hasn't been done in days!

[BittyBabyGrower, MSN, RN]

I look over the counters and if they are gross I clean them IN FRONT of that person and say....Man, remind me not to eat off your counters at home lol Usually they get the hint and next time I follow them they are clean lol

[dawnebeth]

Yeah, just yesterday, I said quite loudly--I hate when the bottom/legs of the IV pole are splattered with formula and IV fluids and cleaned them right in front of the nurse who had that pole. She did say thank you.

[mauigal]

I wipe my area down at the end of my shift and if somthing gets spilled. What bugs me is when I am trying to give report to oncomming nurse she is wiping down the counter like I have just sprayed it with an even layer of ecoli. I clean my kids isolette each night. We try to change our isolettes q-week but it does not always happen

The house keeping people, when they do show up create more problems because they "clean" with the same dirty cloths on every surface. If you try to so something to them they fly off the handle. I just go behind any thing they touch with bleech cloths.

[mauigal]

This is why I don't have colleagues to my home because you never know what people are going to say once they get back to work. Women have a way of judging each other based on cleaning. I once took care of a 400 gram 23 weeker that circled the drain for my entire 12 hour shift. When my relief came on all she could do was complain about how untidy the area was! Excuse ME I was busy coding an embryo for the last 12 hours. Some times you just have to prioritize.

[NebraskaRN]

I have been at the hospital I work at now for just over 3 months. I had worked at a hospital in NY for 4 years and some nurses cleaned with cavi-wipes some did not. Here there are wipes in each baby room and again some use them some do not. I do wipe things down and some nurses call me a cleaner....lol oh well. The isolettes are suppose to be changed weekly, in NY the isolettes did not get changed. There is house keeping here that cleans the floor when they change the trash and linen bags, in NY they did not clean the floors but yearly they tried to clean the nursery rooms top to bottom. I am not aware of a written protocol for wiping things down here or in NY but I could be wrong.