Protecting Patients and the Planet

The COVID pandemic shed light on numerous areas across multiple industries, but none as brightly as infection control in the health care system.

Each year hundreds of millions of people are affected by avoidable Hospital Acquired Infections (HCAIs). Still, even more shockingly, 55% of HCAIs are preventable with the right infection control equipment in place, according to Kwickscreen’s website.

HCAIs are one of the top causes of death in the United States1. It’s estimated that they affect on average one in 31 patients2 and that one in 17 patients die due to HCAIs3, at a cost of $25,0004 per infection.

“COVID highlighted the vital importance of infection control,” says Alan Murrell, CEO of Kwickscreen, a manufacturer of award-winning portable, retractable hospital screens. “When you go to the hospital, you expect you are going into a fully clean space, but that’s just not the case. Most people assume that hospital curtains are changed after every patient, but in some cases the curtain surrounds have been hanging in rooms for over six months.”

Curtains are a standard feature in all wards and healthcare centers. But whether they are linen or disposable, they are difficult to clean and can become rapidly contaminated and act as a dangerous site of infection.

Numerous studies5, 6, 7, 8, 9 have shown that an unsafe volume of infectious bacteria such as MRSA10 can be found on curtains within four weeks of use – including antimicrobial ones11.

One solution to the contamination is disposable curtains but that generates a lot of waste if curtains are changed for every single patient.

If all the hospital curtains in the U.S. were thrown away, approximately 47 million new curtains would be needed each year, creating 43,000 tons of waste in the process12.

STAT: A staggering 9.5 million microscopic plastic fibers are released from washing a 150lb industrial load of curtains13.

Furthermore, detergents used to wash linen curtains usually contain phosphorus and nitrogen compounds, which cause eutrophication in fresh waters and cost the U.S. about $2.2 billion annually to control14.