Reducing the costs of floor cleaning in a level III NICU of Bangalore rural: a quality

[摘要] The NICU expenses to the hospital are classified into fixed (salaries to the personnel, equipment costs, etc) and variable costs (supplies).These costs are a major decisive factor forfixing the patient bill.1 2 Floor cleaning isan essential part of maintaining asepsis inthe Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).Although there are numerous agents, there islimited evidence to guide the choice of floorcleaning agents in the NICU.3 4 The microbicidal activity and the economic impactof these agents are variable. Ovum womanand child specialty hospital is a 15-beddedlevel-III tertiary care referral centre in Bangalore rural. The NICU is spread over threepatient care areas (including isolation andstepdown areas) over 1850 square feet. Weused 2% glutaraldehyde (Bacillocid special)once in 6hours for floor cleaning. The chemical disinfectant consumption for glutaraldehyde alone amounted to an expense rangingbetween Rs. 23 590 and Rs. 26 960 in Mayand June 2021 (Rs. 100 per patient per day).There was concern about the increased costsof these agents for a hospital functioning ina rural setup with affordable pricing for thepatients. Reducing per capita healthcarecosts is an essential component of the tripleaim in healthcare launched by the Institutefor Healthcare Improvement. We decided toaddress this problem with a quality improvement (QI) methodology using the Point ofcare QI model.

[学科分类] 药学

[关键词] Waste Management;Cost-Benefit Analysis;Efficiency;Organizational