People who plan to visit the hospital expect it to be clean or to have no harmful organisms. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 75,000 Americans die each year from hospital-acquired infection.
Many hospitals struggle to prevent the spread of two common, but potentially life-threatening bacteria in particular: Clostridium difficile (C. diff) and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). This problem can be caused by poor hand hygiene and overuse antibiotics.
Consumer Reports has published a list of U.S. hospitals that do the best and worst job fighting infection-causing bacteria. Only 6 percent scored well against MRSA and C. diff.
What can hospitals do in order to keep their patients safe and eliminate these bacteria? There have been successes with hand hygiene, antibiotic stewardship and environment disinfection.
* Hand hygiene. Proper hand hygiene means handwashing/disinfection by all health care workers before and after caring for each patient. Hand sanitizer stations are a great way to reduce infection spread.
* Antibiotic stewardship. Only use broad-spectrum antibiotics when absolutely necessary. Excessive use can lead to resistant organisms.
* Environmental disinfection. Pulsed xenon UV (UV) light can kill the infective capability of viruses and bacteria. This technology is being used by innovative hospitals such as the MD Anderson Cancer Center, Stanford University, University of Washington, and Orlando Health to create germ-zapping robots. It works like this: Full spectrum UV light passes through bacteria, bacterialspores, and viruses’ cell walls, damaging DNA, RNA, and proteins. The organisms are inert and cannot cause infection.
More than 300 hospitals and surgery centers in the United States as well as skilled nursing facilities throughout Europe use these services. Xenex Germ-Zapping RobotsRoom disinfection has been a success rate of up to 70%. It takes just minutes for a room to be completely disinfected and made safe for the next patient using pulsed xenon UV.
Your hospital stay is a time of healing for you and your loved ones. Are you using Xenex robots to disinfect your hospital? Email Xenex to:
[email protected]The company will contact you with the name and address of the hospital. For more information on how Xenex robots make hospitals safer, visit xenex.com.
