Stakeholders' coalition formed on electronic faucet research

The Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC), the American Society for Healthcare Engineering (ASHE), the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America, and the Facility Guidelines Institute have formed a stakeholders' coalition with the goals of increasing knowledge of biofilm in clinical settings; gaining support to help assess infection control issues associated with manual and electronic faucets; and gathering data on the use of faucets in the health care environment. This follows a study released in April by researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine that showed that electronic faucets are more likely than manual faucets to be contaminated with high levels of bacteria. At the time, ASHE and APIC urged caution against removing faucets due to the study and recommended that facilities begin any review of their plumbing fixtures with an infection control risk assessment.

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