A study of prevalence of microorganisms in specific areas of hospitals

The entire medical world is looking up to understand the possible sources for nosocomial infections in hospitals. It is known that most of the infection a patient suffers is acquired at some point in time the patient stays in the hospital. And hospital-acquired infections are one of the major causes of increased morbidity in hospitalized patients. The incidence of infection due to microorganisms keeps increasing. The sources of infection could be air pollution where the air in the closed and confined environment such as ICU is not adequately purified or could be due to and also with the use of contaminated medical equipment. The stethoscope which is a symbol of healthcare is one of the medical devices which are very commonly used by almost all healthcare workers. A statistic says that the period of contact between a patient’s skin and the stethoscope can result in the transfer of micro-organisms. Thus, the chest piece of the stethoscope could be a serious transporter for the spreading of infectious microorganisms from patient to patient and region to region. The diaphragm of the stethoscope chest piece is made up of rubber or silica or plastic material that harbor the infectious organisms. Appropriate treatment or protection of the contact surface needs to be enhanced to prevent the person-to-person infection from the spread. There are several materials and natural fibers that are investigated for their antimicrobial properties for medical applications. In this paper, a study is conducted to identify the genus and species of the microorganism that is adhered to the surface of the stethoscope. The stethoscope samples were collected from around 5 departments of a multi-specialty hospital and a series of biochemical analyses such as simple staining, imvic test., etc were conducted. This study helps in understanding the common type of microorganisms and any specific microorganism that prevails in any particular department. Hence any microorganism control measurement the hospital needs to plan shall be planned effectively by understanding the type of microorganism present.