Are clinicians' scrubs clean? Some hospitals don't know

Some hospitals in the Tampa area of Florida do not have a policy on how often clinicians need to change or clean their scrubs, according to a WTSP report.

Scrubs in the OR have been known to carry bacteria — in fact, one study found 79 percent of OR scrubs tested positive for some type of gram-positive cocci. And WSTP's investigation found varying degrees of strictness regarding OR scrubs policies in area hospitals, and some could not provide a written policy on OR scrub use at all.

However, some hospitals did have strict policies in place. All Children's Hospital in St. Petersburg, for example, had color-coded scrubs that couldn't be worn outside of the OR. Additionally, Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa launders scrubs for people working in the OR, and those scrubs cannot be taken out of the OR, according to the report.

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