The Surface Everyone Forgets: Why Privacy Curtains Are an Infection Control Priority
Walk into any hospital room and you will see a privacy curtain. It might be pulled open, hanging along the wall, or pulled closed around a patient’s bed. It looks like furniture. It blends in. Almost nobody thinks about it and that is precisely the problem.
Privacy curtains are touched all day long by almost everyone who enters a hospital room: patients reaching for them, nurses pulling them open and closed, doctors drawing them during exams, family members using them, and housekeeping staff moving past them. What research has found is that those curtains can carry dangerous bacteria and that they are not often cleaned or changed.
What Studies Have Found About Curtain Contamination
Research published in the American Journal of Infection Control examined privacy curtains in hospital rooms and found that they could become contaminated with pathogens including MRSA and VR—two of the most difficult bacteria to treat—within days of being hung.
MRSA stands for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. VRE stands for vancomycin-resistant enterococcus. Both are bacteria that have become resistant to many of the antibiotics we normally use to treat them. They can cause serious infections in people who are already sick or who have weakened immune systems. And they can survive on fabric and other surfaces for extended periods, sometimes weeks.
The reason curtains become contaminated so quickly is simple: they are a high-touch surface that is rarely disinfected. Unlike bed rails or tray tables, which are wiped down during room cleaning, curtains often go untouched during regular cleaning rounds. Over the course of a patient’s stay, or between patients, a curtain can accumulate bacteria from dozens of different hands.
A second study published in Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology looked at how quickly curtains became recontaminated after being changed. Researchers found that contamination began within hours of a new curtain being hung, and that the most contaminated areas were the edges that people grip when pulling the curtain open or closed.
Why This Matters for Patients
Most people who touch a privacy curtain are not at high risk from the bacteria on it: they touch it, then they wash their hands, and the risk is managed. But patients are different.
Patients in the hospital are often already dealing with a weakened immune system, an open wound from surgery, or a condition that makes it harder to fight off infection. When a contaminated curtain is touched, and then a patient’s skin or a nearby surface is touched without handwashing, there is a pathway for bacteria to move from the curtain to the patient.
The spread of infection through touching a contaminated surface and then touching a person or another surface is called contact transmission. It is one of the most common ways healthcare-associated infections spread. And because curtains are high-touch surfaces that are rarely cleaned, they can serve as a place where bacteria collect and stay, ready to move to the next person who reaches for them.
Patients who develop healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) during their hospital stay face longer stays, more treatments, higher risk of serious complications, and in some cases, life-threatening illness. The data on this is consistent and sobering: HAIs are a major cause of preventable patient harm.
What EVS Teams Can Do
Most hospitals have protocols for when curtains should be changed, typically between patients and when visibly soiled. But research suggests that these protocols alone may not be enough, especially in high-traffic rooms or units where patients stay for extended periods.
EVS teams are in the best position to notice when curtains need attention between scheduled changes. A curtain that is visibly dirty, torn, or showing signs of heavy use should be reported and changed. Some facilities are also moving toward antimicrobial curtains, fabrics that are treated to resist bacterial growth, as an additional layer of protection.
During room cleaning, curtain handles and edges—the parts that are touched most often—can be wiped with a disinfectant that is safe for use on fabric. Not all disinfectants are appropriate for fabric surfaces, so following your facility’s protocol matters here.
Knowing your facility’s curtain change schedule and flagging curtains that may need early replacement is a meaningful infection prevention contribution. It may also be worth raising this issue if you believe the schedule does not reflect how heavily the curtains in your unit are used.
The Overlooked Surface Is Your Responsibility—and Your Strength
Clinical staff think about medications, vitals, and procedures. They walk past the curtain a hundred times a day without thinking about it. EVS teams are the ones who have both the access and the awareness to address surfaces that everyone else overlooks.
The research on privacy curtain contamination is a clear reminder that infection prevention is not just about obvious high-touch surfaces. It is about every surface in the room that connects human hands to human patients — including the ones that blend into the background.
Project Heartbeat is proud to support EVS workers who bring this kind of careful, attentive approach to their work every day. The patients in those rooms may never know what you do to protect them, but the science does.
