Table 2.

The difference between cleaning and cleanliness

	Cleaning	Cleanliness
Definition	A measure of the physical cleaning process	A measure of viable bacteria on a surface
Defined criteria	Compliance with existing cleaning policy	No cleanliness standard
Improvement shown to decrease bacterial transmission (published)	Multiple studies	No direct studies
Impacted by	Thoroughness of cleaning practice, potential observer bias	Type and magnitude of bioburden, thoroughness of cleaning contamination since cleaning, culture system used