Bug Zapper
Room-disinfection robots shoot beams of
ultraviolet light to reduce the bacterial count on
surfaces you might have missed.
W
e were
behind in
the battle
against
Clostridium
difficile infection at 2 of our hospi-
tals last year, both
beset by an alarming
spike in the number
of C. diff cases.
Despite attention to cleaning with
our hospital-approved cleaner and
bleach, good compliance with clean-
ing high-touch surfaces and hand
hygiene, we needed to do more to
ensure eradication of the pesky
spores. We decided to enhance ter-
minal room disinfection against the
invisible enemy with ultraviolet dis-
infection. Our environmental servic-
es staff wheels the R2-D2-shaped
devices into patient rooms after the
routine terminal clean to kill bacteria
and spores that may persist despite
the thorough manu-
al cleaning. I don't
know for sure how
much credit these
backyard bug zappers on steroids
deserve for curbing our C. diff flare-
up, but by all early indications, they
appear to have resulted in a
decrease in rates at both of our hos-
pitals since deployment.
Look at the numbers. At our
Cambridge campus, we had 8 C. diff
Lou Ann Bruno-Murtha, DO
Cambridge, Mass.
1404_SurgerysHottestTrends_Layout 1 3/27/14 2:46 PM Page 20
