Earlier this year, the ECRI Institute placed disinfection robots at the top of its 2015 Top 10 Hospital C-Suite Watch List, which highlights new and emerging technologies. Ultraviolet light robots fall under that category. The following are five studies on the efficacy of UV light disinfection that have been covered by Becker's Hospital Review since the beginning of 2015.
1. In just 10 minutes, a pulsed xenon UV robot can kill Clostridium difficile, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus on hospital room surfaces, a study in Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology found.
2. Utica, N.Y.-based Faxton St. Luke's Healthcare was able to reduce rates of Clostridium difficile infections by 39 percent after implementing a bundle of evidence-based interventions and using the Sufacide Helios Triple Emitter UV-C disinfection system.
3. UV light disinfection can be used on personal protective equipment, while the healthcare worker is still wearing it, to reduce the risk of possible contamination while taking off the PPE, according to a study published in the American Journal of Infection Control.
4. Continuous UV-C disinfection robots were proven to be more effective in killing pathogens than pulsed xenon devices in a study funded by the U.S. Veterans Administration.
5. Germ-zapping robots using pulsed xenon ultraviolet light can clean hospital rooms about as well as manual cleaning, according to research from the Texas A&M Health Science Center in Round Rock. Last year in a different study, the same researcher also found that manual cleaning plus UV light killed 99 percent of MRSA bacteria.