Terminal Cleans

Apella's Terminal Cleans streams and stores overnight video from each OR, giving Environmental Services (EVS) and OR leaders on-demand evidence of every deep clean, and a place to audit and track results.

• Captures video for every room, every night - Records from 15 min after the last case until the next day’s first case (or prime-time start); mid-night cases are automatically clipped
• Audit directly in app - Audit from your desk and track all results in one place
• Single list & smart filters - Every clean appears in one searchable list with room/date filter
• Estimated clean durations - Estimated duration of cleaning activity occurring within 15 minutes after the last case of the day or 15 minutes before the first case of the next day. This may not reflect terminal cleaning as defined by the hospital, and typically excludes cleaning that is contiguous with the prior case.

How to use terminal cleans:

1. Open Terminal Cleans from the left navigation.
2. Use filters to narrow by room, date, or audit result.
3. View the estimated duration column to see the approximate cleaning activity detected.
4. Click on a row to open the video player and audit form.
5. Play the video—scrub or use 2× speed to review quickly.
6. Click 'Record Audit' to score the clean. Your score is saved instantly and visible to colleagues or to yourself at the end of the month. Add a comment about what was so great (or needed improvement).
7. Repeat for the next room; filter by 'Audit Result' to stay organized

FAQ

What about patient cases in the night?

The app removes any case footage. The video stops 5 minutes before a patient is wheeled in and resumes 5 minutes after the patient is wheeled out. When cases happen during the night, multiple video clips will be created for that night.

Apella said there was "No Clean Detected" but really there was.  What do I do?

Apella’s AI is designed to support, not replace, your clinical judgment. While our models are highly accurate in many areas—like intraoperative event detection and case timing—cleaning detection is particularly challenging and less precise. This is especially true when turnover and terminal cleaning activities are combined, which can make it harder for the model to distinguish a standalone terminal clean.

If you verify that cleaning did occur, we recommend recording an audit note to confirm the clean. This helps indicate that you saw the cleaning.

If the Estimated Duration field becomes more confusing than helpful, please let us know—we’re open to removing or refining it in future versions based on your feedback.

How do customers use this in practice? It's a lot of data /videos to watch.

Our customer have found success setting up an audit policy that they can use to set themselves up for success.  For example one such policy is that the EVS Manager might review a terminal clean from each room at least once per month.