Tanning the bugs – a pilot study of an innovative approach to stethoscope disinfection

Healthcare-associated infections (HCAIs) are a major public health problem. There is also evidence that stethoscope may transfer micro-organisms responsible of HCAIs. The aim is to evaluate the effectiveness of an innovative device for the disinfection of stethoscope membranes. A pilot study with pre/post design was performed between March and April 2015. Ten resident students were enrolled as volunteers. We used an innovative device having a UVC Light Emitting Diode -LED (255-280 nm) for disinfecting the stethoscope membrane. The test stethoscope was used to auscultate 10 points on the chest of the 10 volunteers; each volunteer was examined twice, before and after the UVC disinfection, which took 5 minutes. Colony Forming Unit (CFU) were counted using Petri dishes after incubation at 36_C for 48 h. Descriptive and inference analyses were performed. No cfu were detected in five out of 10 cultures from treated stethoscopes. The other five cases had a mean of 132.6 (SD: 165.1) cfu on untreated tests and a mean of 19 (SD: 23.8) cfu on treated ones. The average cfu reduction between the two groups was 85.7% (P =0.002). This study confirms that bacteria transfer from skin to stethoscopes. Second, the innovative device was able to reduce the amount of bacteria significantly.