Ideas That Work: Don’t Get Bunched Up

Practical pearls from your colleagues.

Anyone who has ever turned over an OR knows that all disinfectant wipes aren’t created equal.

One characteristic that varies among wipes is whether they bunch up when you use them.

Cody Patterson, ST, associate director of endoscopy with GastroIntestinal Specialists, Shreveport (La.) Endoscopy Center and Louisiana Research Center, advises surgical leaders to consider this when evaluating disinfectant wipes for use by your perioperative staff. It’s one of the reasons why he and his staff like the wipes they use so much. “We have noticed they do not bunch up like other wipes do while cleaning surfaces,” he says.

There are other factors, of course.

For example, Mr. Patterson and his staff like that the wipes they currently use have a rapid one-minute dry time on hard surfaces like countertops, carts and wheelchairs. He says they clean very well, hold their saturation of the disinfectant solution better, and are a bit larger than other wipes they’ve tried.

But as anyone who has cleaned a sticky countertop or other surface with substandard wipes can tell you, the ability to robustly clean and disinfect without almost immediately finding a wadded-up piece of fabric in your hand makes the task much smoother and easier — not to mention the fact that you likely won’t need to use as many wipes! OSM