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Welcome to the Hygiena tutorial for setting ATP pass/fail limits for the healthcare industry.
In this video we will cover lower and upper RLU limits, default limits on your system,
recommended RLU limits for general locations, how to determine custom limits and how to
program those limits. Let's get started.
The first section is lower and upper RLU limits Test results are measured in relative light
units. RLUs are a unit of measure for Adenosine Triphosphate. The scale varies depending upon
manufacturer but the greater the amount of ATP, the greater the RLU number.
Any rlu score less than the lowest threshold is a pass and will be indicated by a check
mark on the screen. Pass results indicate that the location has been cleaned properly.
A score in between the pass and fail threshold is a caution and will be indicated by an exclamation
point. Depending on your internal protocol, the cautioned location should either be re-cleaned
and retested until a pass result is achieved or monitored for future problems.
A score greater than the Upper threshold is a fail and will be marked with an X on the
screen. A Fail result indicates the surface is dirty or contaminated. The failed location
should be immediately re-cleaned and retested until a Pass or Caution result is achieved.
Your meter comes preset with a default lower limit of 10 and an upper limit of 30. This
creates a caution area of 11-30. If you wish to eliminate the caution area,
set 10 as your pass limit and 10 as your fail limit.
The default limits of 10 and 30 RLUs are based on actual limits used in OR's, ICU's, and
sterile services. The next section is recommended limits for
general locations. Based on clinical experience and current literature, Hygiena recommends
general limits for areas such as patient rooms, public areas, sterile services, and more.
Reference the System Implementation Guide for more details on general limits as well
as the sources from which our limits are based on.
Hygiena encourages users to validate these recommendations and adjust them to meet the
requirements of each facility's unique needs. To determine custom RLU limits for your facility,
complete this 4 step process: identify, clean, test and calculate.
Step 1: Identify areas within the facility that will be tested.
At minimum, locations that are typically tested are high touch point surfaces where the chance
of spreading bacteria is high. Monitoring of low risk surfaces on a less frequent basis
is also essential to verifying the facility is being thoroughly cleaned.
Step 2: Clean surfaces to the highest standard of cleanliness. Be sure that future cleanings
will be held to this level of clean as a standard. Step 3: Perform an ATP test at each control
point, taking 10 replicate tests. You can either perform tests over several days or
for control points with large surface area, perform multiple tests from different spots
at that location. Step 4: Calculate the lower and upper RLU
limits To calculate the lower RLU limit, take the
average RLU for each location based on the 10 test results. The average result will be
the lower RLU limit. To calculate the upper RLU limit, determine
the standard deviation from the test results, multiply the standard deviation by 3, and
add this to the lower limit. For written instructions, refer to the system
implementation guide, or contact us for a limit calculator.
Now that you've established your custom limits, we will discuss programming those limits.
You can manually adjust the pass/fail limits on the instrument through the menu option,
Programs. Or to get the most out of your monitoring system and to be able to run charts and graphs
with your test results, then program your locations using SureTrend software and sync
to your meter. SureTrend software helps management assess team performance, identify cleaning
trends, facilitate troubleshooting discussions, and track and trend test results.
Constantly looking to improve your infection prevention program shows due diligence and
is crucial to finding trouble zones, correcting improper cleaning procedures, and decreasing
risk of infection from poorly cleaned surfaces. If you're obtaining high frequencies of caution
and fail results, users should review cleaning materials, procedures, and personnel training.
In some cases if you rarely obtain caution or fail results, consider lowering your limits
for a more strict program. This concludes our Hygiena tutorial. Make
sure to subscribe to our Youtube channel to stay up to date on our newest videos. If you
have any questions feel free to contact Hygiena with the information on the screen. With 24/7
customer service and technical support, Hygiena is here to help.