Establishment of a colonoscopy reporting system is a prerequisite to determining and improving quality. This study aimed to investigate colonoscopists' opinions and the actual situation of a colonoscopy reporting system in a clinical practice in southeastern area of Korea and to assess the factors predictive of an inadequate reporting system.

Physicians who performed colonoscopies in the Daegu-Gyeongbuk province of Korea and were registered with the Korean Society of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (KSGE) were interviewed via mail about colonoscopy reporting systems using a standardized questionnaire.

Of 181 endoscopists invited to participate, 125 responded to the questionnaires (response rate, 69%). Most responders were internists (105/125, 84%) and worked in primary clinics (88/125, 70.4%). Seventy-one specialists (56.8%) held board certifications for endoscopy from the KSGE. A median of 20 colonoscopies (interquartile range, 10–47) was performed per month. Although 88.8% of responders agreed that a colonoscopy reporting system is necessary, only 18.4% (23/125) had achieved the optimal reporting system level recommended by the Quality Assurance Task Group of the National Colorectal Cancer Roundtable. One-third of endoscopists replied that they did not use a reporting document for the main reasons of "too busy" and "inconvenience." Non-endoscopy specialists and primary care centers were independent predictive factors for failure to use a colonoscopy reporting system.

The quality of colonoscopy reporting systems varies widely and is considerably suboptimal in actual clinical practice settings in southeastern Korea, indicating considerable room for quality improvements in this field.

Given the characteristic procedures involved in the endoscopy unit, the spread of pathogens is much more frequent in this unit than in other environments. However, there is a lack of data elucidating the existence of pathogens in the endoscopy unit. The aim of this study was to detect the presence of possible pathogens in the endoscopy unit.

We performed environmental culture using samples from the endoscopy rooms of 2 tertiary hospitals. We used sterile cotton-tipped swabs moistened with sterile saline to swab the surfaces of 197 samples. Then, we cultured the swab in blood agar plate. Samples from the colonoscopy room were placed in thioglycollate broth to detect the presence of anaerobes. After 2 weeks of culture period, we counted the colony numbers.

The most commonly contaminated spots were the doctor's keyboard, nurse's cart, and nurse's mouse. The common organisms found were non-pathogenic bacterial microorganisms Staphylococcus, Micrococcus, and Streptococcus spp.. No definite anaerobe organism was detected in the colonoscopy room.

Although the organisms detected in the endoscopy unit were mainly non-pathogenic organisms, they might cause opportunistic infections in immunocompromised patients. Therefore, the environment of the endoscopy room should be managed appropriately; moreover, individual hand hygiene is important for preventing possible hospital-acquired infections.