P4: Enhancing Patient Safety Through Strategic Placement of Copper Surfaces

The implementation of the new Medicare rules have heightened the importance of practices that increase patient safety. Improved strategies are required to reduce hospital-associated infections (HAI) as they represent the 4^th leading cause of death and a substantial 40 billion dollars in cost to healthcare in the United States. The contribution of environmental surface contamination with pathogenic organisms to the development of HAI has not been well defined. However, commonly touched items are known to harbor microorganisms and may have an important role.  Current cleaning methods can effectively remove pathogens from surfaces but studies show that more than half are not adequately terminally cleaned, and may become re-contaminated within minutes. For millennia humans have indirectly appreciated the antimicrobial activity of metallic copper (Cu).  The inherent antimicrobial activity of Cu surfaces offers an advantage  as disinfection is continuous rather than episodic. Recently it was learned that the application of a limited, less than 5% of the available surface area, within the built clinical environment with EPA-approved antimicrobial Cu surfaces resulted in an average 83% reduction to the bacterial burden. Further, reduction to bacterial burden using only  a limited number of high touch surfaces resulted in a significant, double digit decrease to the incidence of HAI/or colonization by MRSA and VRE in the intensive care units at three US hospitals.