Is your environment killing you?

Is your seat clean?

Have you ever thought twice about sitting down in a seat? It’s after work and your tired, just boarded your long train ride home and hoped that there was an empty seat for your trip. The door opens and the movie line begins to move in quickly, you just rush to get your seat.

You and your wife just land at the airport, get into the rental bus and sit down to be driven to your rental car for you week of fun and relaxation. You are boarding your plane to grab your seat to go home after a long week on the east coast, retuning to the west coast and will spend the next six hours or more in your seat. An evening out with your family to a ball game and just sat down to enjoy your favorite sports.

These examples can go on, and on, and on, seats, seats, and more seats.

We all know where these HAI’s (Healthcare Associated Infections) are breeding, living and waiting to ruin the day of another defenseless patient or hospital personnel. We have many studies showing that traditional cleaning  just doesn’t cut it today. Whether it be the increase in population,the ease of traveling across continents with these bugs hitchhiking on you or just a developed  resistant to antibiotics that has enabled these Superbugs bugs to gain a choke hold on us.

A study involving commonly touched surfaces (bed rails, telephones, call buttons, toilet seats, wheelchairs and bedside tables) in patient rooms with C. Diff found that after routine cleaning, 78% of the surfaces remained contaminated with C. Diff spores.

A separate study of 49 New England hospitals found 25% of OR surfaces were overlooked by current cleaning teams.

Scientists are still probing the deadly E. coli strain in Europe are finding the bacteria combines a highly poisonous, but common, toxin with a rarely seen "glue" that binds it to a patient's intestines.

It may take months for the global team of researchers to fully understand the characteristics of the bacteria that have killed at least 18 people in Europe and sickened thousands. But they fear this E. coli strain is the most toxic yet to hit a human population.

Most Escherichia coli or E. coli bacteria are harmless. The strain that is sickening people in Germany and other parts of Europe, known as 0104:H4, is part of a class of bacteria known as Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli, or STEC.

Our Firefighters are exposed to dangers everyday, many of them deadly. However many of these dangers are out of their control. MRSA is another danger that has invaded their firehouses, now there is a technology that was developed for the U.S. Defense Dept., to neutralize a buildings contaminated with Anthrax. This technology is NOW available to give our firefighters the piece of mind that the surfaces they clean up in, cook in, sleep and sit on are MRSA free.

As a physician with an understanding of infectious disease and considering the jump from hospital acquired MRSA (HA-MRSA) to community acquired MRSA (CA-MRSA) it makes sense for the fire departments around the globe to potentially have concerns over MRSA and other potentially deadly pathogens invading their own fire station. The close sleeping quarters, showers and group lounges are perfect environments for MRSA to flourish in and may live up to 9 months on surfaces.

“As long as you love and learn, you are young. The day you stop loving and learning you become old”

Owls are known for their wisdom and TOMI's new owl mascot stands for Wisdom along with Online Writing and Learning. So I will do the writing and hopefully you (the reader) will do the Learning. This OWL blog will educate you on indoor environments, green living along with other issues that will be life changing. So please help and forward this blog to all your friends.