Guidelines in Practice: Environmental Hygiene

Establishing a hygienic perioperative environment is essential for reducing pathogen transmission and promoting optimal patient outcomes. The recently updated AORN "Guideline for environmental hygiene" provides perioperative team members with evidence-based recommendations for a bundled, multimodal approach to environmental hygiene and ways to reduce pathogen transmission in the perioperative setting. High-quality evidence and expert consensus support coordinated cleaning strategies as more effective than single interventions. This article provides an overview of the guideline and discusses recommendations for cleaning and disinfection practices, operating and procedure rooms, high-risk pathogens, and hazardous medication-contaminated surfaces. It also includes a scenario describing best practices related to implementing enhanced environmental cleaning procedures after caring for a patient infected with Candida auris. Perioperative nurses should review the guideline in its entirety and apply the recommendations to support safe environmental hygiene practices in the perioperative environment.