C diff room downtime

[rubyred1014]

Hello all,

I work in an outpatient GI lab and I am just curious what other facilities do in a particular situation. As a rule, we are not supposed to take active C Diff patients, they should be cleared before having an endoscopy. That being said, every now and again, a patient may come in and we are unaware of the infection until the endoscopy is performed. As soon as we become aware of the infection, the room is terminally cleaned with bleach as are all other areas (pre-op, recovery, restrooms etc.) and then left to 'rest' for one hour. The one hour understandably sets us pretty far behind for the day and can be very frustrating for our patients. We have always done the one hour rest time but when I read the literature I can't seem to find where this came from. Do any other facilities have the 'rest' time or has anyone seen any literature about this practice?

[OvertimeMom]

I've not researched the literature but our Hospital has a very strict infection control nurse who always lands on the side of caution when there is an issue. We terminally clean the rooms with the bleach chemical but once the room is dry we use it. There is no additional waiting period. I am in a hospital based endoscopy lab.

[K+MgSO4, BSN]

There are other products out there that don't require such a "down time". That time is for the chemical smells to dissipate so that it is safe for the staff to be in.