Hospital-based environmental hygiene: priorities for research. Healthcare Infection. 2013;18:49–50

Traditional, environment-based hospital hygiene has long been considered a weak science, usually arising from the creation of a global hypothesis, which is poetically elaborated upon by its creator without appeal to patient-orientated facts that would be capable of confirming or refuting it.1 There are many examples of environment-focused studies in hospital hygiene that reveal the missed opportunity of introducing some patient-orientated outcome into the study design. Nevertheless, the role of the environment as a potential reservoir of multidrug-resistant microorganisms (MDROs) and Clostridium difficile has recently gained new momentum.2 Several studies from Europe have highlighted the importance of thorough cleaning practices to avoid transmission of MDROs that are capable of surviving in the environment for extended periods.3–5With respect to hospita