Researchers from the University of Newcastle and Monash University have shown that regularly disinfecting shared medical equipment can help reduce infections picked up in hospitals – and save the health system money.

In Australia, there are an estimated 7500 deaths associated with hospital-acquired infections annually. The most common include wound infections after surgery, urinary tract infections and pneumonia.

Research suggests medical equipment (such as blood pressure machines, dressing trolleys and drip stands) could be a common source of infection.

The Newcastle and Monash researchers conducted an experiment – known as a “stepped wedge trial” in a New South Wales hospital where they introduced a package of extra cleaning measures onto several wards.

The package consisted of designated cleaners specifically trained to clean and disinfect sensitive medical equipment. Normally, the cleaning of shared equipment is the responsibility of clinical staff.

They claim cleaning thoroughness improved from 24 per cent to 66 per cent after the introduction of the package and hospital-acquired infections dropped from 14.9 per cent to 9.8 per cent of patients.

“This not only benefits patients, but also hospitals and the community, by freeing up resources that can be used to treat other patients,” they wrote in The Conversation.

“We estimated the 30 fewer infections per 1,000 patients reduced costs to $1.5 million, even when factoring in the cost of cleaners and cleaning products. Put differently, our intervention could save a hospital $642,000 for every 1000 patients.”