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over.
You'll need to factor time into the equation. Depending on the size of the OR
and the UV system that you use, UV disinfection can take as little as 15 minutes
to as long as 40 minutes, certainly not in keeping with same-day surgery's brisk
turnover times, scheduling pace and shorter case times. Here's our UV schedule:
• Our surgeons can request UV-disinfection of the room before or after a certain
case (a known C. diff carrier, for example) to be certain that we eliminate
spores completely or prior to prosthetic material being placed in a high-risk
patient.
• We UV-disinfect our prosthetic joints OR every night.
• We UV-disinfect other rooms at day's end after the terminal clean as often as
possible.
Our study showed that between-case contamination in the OR continued to
rise from case to case with standard cleaning, increasing after the third case,
perhaps because of a cumulative effect. Contamination was reduced to almost
zero when the UV device was used between cases. While between-case UV dis-
infection may not be practical for most ORs, consider adopting this technology
after a day's worth of cases to rest assured that you are providing an optimal
environment for patients in the morning.
OSM
Dr. Bruno-Murtha (
lbruno-murtha@challiance.org
) is medical director of infection preven-
tion and division chief of infectious diseases for the Cambridge (Mass.) Health Alliance.
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