A germ-zapping robot is keeping rooms clean at a North Idaho Hospital.
Northwest Specialty Hospital in Post Falls has a low infection rate of about 0.5 percent but that could change for the better.
The Xenex germ-zapping robot is the next generation of UV robot disinfection. It produces intense UV light pulses, flashing 65 times per second. The pulses are so intense that human eyes cannot handle the exposure and neither can germs.
Environmental services does an excellent job of keeping the rooms clean but the robot is the second step in the process, providing something that human staff cannot.
“This goes a step above and beyond and gets areas where it's hard for environmental services to get in the nooks and crannies and also this gets rid of the human factor of error,” said Leah Davis, an infection preventionist with Northwest Specialty Hospital.
“Our goal is to get to zero infections, we do not want anybody coming to this facility, ever leaving with an infection,” she added. “We just want to do everything we can to make sure our patients are safe.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one in 31 hospital patients suffer from a healthcare-associated infection every day. Tens of thousands die as a result.
This Xenex robot is just one of the technologies hospitals across the country are using to tackle this issue. According to Davis, the robot is 99.8 percent effective against most known bacteria.
