Healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) affect up to 15% of all hospitalized patients, representing a global concern. Major causes include the persistent microbial contamination of hospital environment, and the growing antimicrobial-resistance (AMR) of HAI-associated microbes. The hospital environment represents in fact a reservoir of potential pathogens, continuously spread by healthcare personnel, visiting persons and hospitalized patients. The control of contamination has been so far addressed by the use of chemical-based sanitation procedures, which however have limitations, as testified by the persistence of contamination itself and by the growing AMR of hospital microbes. Here we review the results collected by a microbial-based sanitation system, inspired by the microbiome balance principles, in obtaining more effective control of microbial contamination and AMR. Whatever the sanitation system used, an important aspect of controlling AMR and HAIs relates to the ability to check any variation of a microbial population rapidly and effectively, thus effective monitoring procedures are also described.

Hypothermia is a common complication in patients undergoing surgery under general anesthesia. It has been noted that, during the first hour of surgery, the patient’s internal temperature (Tcore) decreases by 0.5–1.5°C due to the vasodilatory effect of anesthetic gases, which affect the body’s thermoregulatory system by inhibiting vasoconstriction. Thus a continuous check on patient temperature must be carried out. The currently most used methods to avoid hypothermia are based on passive systems (such as blankets reducing body heat loss) and on active ones (thermal blankets, electric or hot-water mattresses, forced hot air, warming lamps, etc.). Within a broader research upon the environmental conditions, pollution, heat stress, and hypothermia risk in operating theatres, the authors set up an experimental investigation by using a warming blanket chosen from several types on sale. Their aim was to identify times and ways the human body reacts to the heat flowing from the blanket and the blanket’s effect on the average temperatureTskinand, as a consequence, onTcoretemperature of the patient. The here proposed methodology could allow surgeons to fix in advance the thermal power to supply through a warming blanket for reaching, in a prescribed time, the desired body temperature starting from a given state of hypothermia.