From the August 2011 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
A study published in Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology found that the ultraviolet device reduced contamination found on 75 surfaces in 12 inpatient rooms and eliminated VRE, or vancomycin-resistant enterococci, a common MDRO, altogether.
“We are very encouraged by the results of this study, which demonstrated that our Xenex room disinfection system is 20 times more effective in killing dangerous pathogens like VRE,” says Mark Stibich, chief scientific officer of Xenex and one of the study’s authors.
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The device has been recognized as “green” by Practice Green Health, a national organization for health care institutions committed to implementing sustainable, eco-friendly practices.
But the big question is: will the device reduce HAIs? An initial answer is available at Cooley Dickinson Hospital; in the first year of using the PX-UV device, the hospital experienced an 82 percent reduction in C diff infections. “This decrease translates to many more people leaving the hospital safer and with better outcomes,” says Dr. Joanne Levin, the hospital’s medical director of infection prevention.
Other hospitals and health care facilities opt to focus on testing.
Facilities interested in testing individual surfaces to determine whether they are really as clean as they look can turn to Midbrook Medical’s MediCount ATP Testing System. Users swab a surface and place the swab into a handheld unit. The unit measures the amount of ATP on the surface, which shows, by association, how much bacteria is present. Users can set acceptable thresholds for various surfaces; typically, for instance, patient room touch surfaces should have less bacteria than the sofa in the visitor’s lounge.
This information enables health care facilities to audit and adjust their cleaning processes, retrain operators if necessary, and quarantine or reprocess items that require additional cleaning. With heightened awareness, these and other new tools, as well as the CUSP implementation system, researchers and health care administrators are confident that rates of hospital-acquired infections will improve.
Yet another approach is offered by bioMérieux. Its NucliSENS Easy Q MRSA test can detect seven types of MRSA , including the most common strains. It uses nasal samples for identification and provides results within three hours.
“Almost all HAIs are preventable and rapid detection is key in preventing further spread of the infection,” says Narayan Krishnaswami, global product manager of Nosocomial Infections for bioMerieux.
