Disinfected so it is safe and works.

There has been an upsurge in interest in monitoring the cleanliness of the health care environment as it relates to disease transmission. Cleaning and disinfecting practices are nothing new in health care facilities. However, continued development of analytical medical products such as point-of-care devices or, as in this review, glucose meters, has created potential risks to patients on a number of levels. Examples are (1) inappropriate disinfection of glucose meters so that the risk of disease transmission is increased and (2) cleaning agents potentially affecting glucose reading accuracy. Cleaning and disinfection recommendations have become available to address these issues. In this issue of Journal of Diabetes Science and Technology, Sarmaga and colleagues discuss the impact of a disinfecting agent on results generated from a particular device, which suggests that not all equipment are created equal and not all practices/products used to clean and disinfect are the same. It appears that more interaction must take place between vendors of these technologies as well as vendors of cleaning/disinfecting agents and the end users who will be performing all the requisite tasks to ensure a high quality product as well as care.