This article by Mike Marturello was originally published at The Herald Republican website on January 6, 2023.
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Caption: Bardon Obryen, environmental services supervisor at Cameron Memorial Community Hospital, shows a report that an ultraviolet disinfectant robot shows after running through a patient's room. The hospital started to use disinfection robots late last year. Photo by: Mike Marturello
ANGOLA, INDIANA, USA — In its mission to make sure its facilities are as clean as possible for patient and staff safety, Cameron Memorial Community Hospital now employs robots to clean rooms with ultraviolet light.
The work is done after staff with the environmental services team does its typical cleaning and sterilising of rooms after patients leave.
“The UV-C disinfectant robots are designed to be used after a patient has been discharged and after the rooms have been cleaned and disinfected using the standard cleaning and disinfection procedures. This is not a substitute for disinfection, it is an extra layer of disinfection that can get difficult to reach surfaces in the room,” said Haley Jepsen, marketing and communications manager at Cameron. Cameron is currently using two of the robots on two different floors of the hospital.
“One of the cool things about the robot is, because it moves on its own, you don’t rely on somebody moving it different locations in the room to run it,” said Rachel Faulkner, chief quality officer at Cameron. “It will go up against the equipment to make sure everything gets the UV radiation.”
Caption: One of the ultraviolet disinfectant robots used at Cameron Memorial Community Hospital is running through a patient's room. The light emitted by the robot disinfects the room following traditional cleaning. Photo by: Mike Marturello
An ultraviolet disinfection system transfers electromagnetic energy from a mercury arc lamp to an organism’s genetic material. When UV radiation penetrates the cell wall of an organism, it destroys the cell’s ability to reproduce.
The equipment is set up so it can remember rooms that it has been in or a member of the environmental services staff will walk the unit around the room to teach it a new space.
Once the equipment is running, people can’t be in the same room due to the ultraviolet light that’s being emitted.
“So it can go from a larger room like this into even a bathroom and it can stay still, and actually, you know, do this disinfecting process. So there’s a lot of really nice features that it can do,” said Darren Goff, Cameron’s director of environmental services. “You know, look, the world’s changed since COVID came in. So there’s this is just an enhanced level of disinfectant that you know, you have to look about getting people through the hospital quickly and safely.”
The equipment doesn’t replace the work of humans but enhances it.
For example, it will not take care of fluids that might be on surfaces.
“No, it doesn’t have any magic hands that go in and grind it up. So that’s why we go in with our team,” said Jason Mosser, environmental services supervisor, “and clean the room first. Again, this is just an enhanced level of disinfecting that you do prior to putting the patient in. This doesn’t replace all of us cleaning. We still have to clean the toilet, inside, clean the shower, clean what we call soiled surfaces.”
The equipment is being used by more and more healthcare facilities, but it is not something that’s required.
Goff called it an investment Cameron has made for the community.
Faulkner said it was taking the hospital’s commitment to quality to a new level.
“It’s not a required thing in healthcare, but it’s definitely a benefit to our patients. And it’s something we felt very strongly about investing in and it’s supported by CDC, World Health Organization, all those entities out there as an effective means (of cleaning). So we’re so excited to bring this here,” she said.
Goff said the equipment is very effective at getting at super bugs and infectious materials that the human eye might see.
Even though the equipment is being used almost exclusively in patient rooms, it can also be used to cleanse areas, for example, used for meetings.
People could have been gathering in a conference room, for example, and there may have been one or two people present who were later learned to have been contagious for a virus. The robot can be put to use after traditional cleaning to make sure that environment is safe for its next use.
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