Use of adenosine triphosphate (atp) to monitor cleaning and disinfection of surfaces in air medical transport

With the objective of evaluating the quality of disinfection of aircraft and equipment used during inter-hospital aeromedical transport using ATP bioluminescence technology, we studied the environmental contamination that represents the risk of microbial transmission between patients and professionals. This remains one of the challenges of clinical practice. Visual inspection and microbial culture are considered common methods for evaluating the cleaning and disinfection of surfaces close to patients in hospital settings, such as cardiac monitors, infusion pumps, stretchers, etc. Visual inspection is easy to perform and inexpensive, but it does not provide objective information about the level of cleanliness achieved and therefore the risk of infection. Microbial cultures are highly sensitive and specific, but they are time-consuming, expensive and require different equipment and supplies, microbiology laboratories and professionals. This is a descriptive and comparative study based on the results of cultures collected by a private aeromedical transport company in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil. In this research, the samples were cultivated in two steps. For convenience, samples are collected and surfaces are established by hand and patient contact. Finally, although data on clinically relevant cutoffs for reducing microbial transmission are limited, cutoffs based on hospital studies were used, which may not be appropriate for an aeronautical medicine setting.