The Danger of Hospital Acquired Infections (HAIs)
Hospitals move at a very fast pace. There are lots of people coming in and out, as well as equipment that needs to be moved throughout the facility. Hospital Acquired Infections (HAIs) can easily spread by touching pieces of contaminated equipment and by not washing hands after contact with contaminated surfaces. If a surface is left uncleaned, it can easily become a source of cross-contamination.
Getting Rooms Ready for People
Making sure that rooms are ready for people is critical. Any area that is occupied by people needs to be cleaned and disinfected. This includes hallways, restrooms, waiting rooms, patient rooms, hospital kitchens and play areas. It’s critical to clean any surface in the hospital that is touched. This includes door handles, telephones and elevator buttons.
For manual cleaning, it’s also critical to maintain a clear cleaning schedule that is visible to all staff and able to be monitored by your IP management team. Your entire IP team should understand roles and responsibilities when it comes to disinfection. The thoroughness of cleaning can never be 100% consistent given human error; humans aren’t perfect, so there is a chance that hospital rooms just won’t be cleaned effectively every time. Beyond that, the cleaning agents used are not able to kill certain resistant organisms. There is an obvious need for more consistent and effective tools to reduce harmful pathogens. Cleaning is only one layer of infection prevention. The best way to ensure the entire hospital gets disinfected properly is to combine manual cleaning methods with UVC disinfection.
What is UVC Disinfection?
Ultraviolet-C (UVC) disinfection is one type of no-touch technology shown to be a successful adjunct to manual cleaning. According to the FDA, UVC radiation is a known disinfectant for air and nonporous surfaces. UVC technology deploys UV light to penetrate the cell walls of spores, bacteria and viruses and renders these harmful pathogens unable to reproduce and spread after treatment with UVC energy. UVC radiation has effectively been used for decades to reduce the spread of bacteria and harmful pathogens. When bundled with manual cleaning and disinfection protocols, the technology significantly reduces patient exposure to HAIs.
How to Choose the Best UVC System
In today’s healthcare environment – including hyper awareness of virus transmission risk – hospitals need to choose technologies that can be measured and are able to provide the data needed to show proof of UVC dosing and compliance. UVC devices should be easily accessible to high-touch surface areas. Those surfaces need the most direct light to effectively and efficiently rid them of harmful, HAI-causing pathogens.
UVC radiation can only inactivate a virus if the virus is directly exposed to the radiation. If a surface is under a shadow, it won’t be disinfected. Some UVC systems don’t administer the proper dose and miss areas that may contain dangerous pathogens. The right UVC system should measure the delivered UVC dose and have a “pause and reposition” feature that helps operators ensure targeted areas of the room have received optimal dosage to kill harmful pathogens. This technology helps staff quickly disinfect crucial areas and return rooms to service.
Additionally, measuring the delivered UVC does, tracking treatment data, monitoring effectiveness, and sharing with necessary stakeholders is an important function of UVC light technology. Using patented remote UVC sensors and pausing and repositioning the UVC system, helps address variables such as room shape and other obstacles that might prevent areas from being disinfected. The best UVC solutions work to reach all targeted areas within a treated room, including those in shadowed or hard-to-reach places.
Contact us to learn more about UVC disinfection.