Currently, Legionella in building water and cooling towers is assessed using the standard culture-based detection method. However, this method fails to detect Legionella in the viable but nonculturable (VNBC) state. This state is induced by disinfectants, low nutrients and amoeba. Using a novel method to detect VBNC Legionella, it was found that almost 90% of hospital water samples positive for VBNC Legionella returned a false negative result using culture. Interestingly, all VBNC Legionella positive samples were also positive using qPCR detection. The use of these superior detection methods will improve Legionella risk management and prevent outbreaks of Legionnaires disease.