Since the days of Florence Nightingale, hospital environmental disinfection has barely evolved. Nurses and cleaners still use hand cloths, wipes, mops, and harsh chemicals to manually clean the rooms, floor, and equipment. Medicine has evolved, technology has evolved, and humans have launched themselves off the planet to visit the moon – but hospital disinfection is stuck in the early 1900s.
According to the World Health Organization, 500,000 people worldwide contract a hospital-acquired infection (HAI) every single day leading to 16 million deaths annually. In Australia alone, there are 200,000 hospital-acquired infections every year costing the healthcare system $2 billion dollars in lost bed days.
Hospitals have only recently moved towards using advanced technology for cleaning and disinfection but we still have a long way to go. Current technologies include hydrogen peroxide but can take up to two hours including the time to set up and the room cannot be used directly after the disinfection. More recently, MUVi has introduced UV into the Australian hospital market.
MUVi UV disinfection not only takes as little as 10 minutes, it can be used in between patient turn-over and ensures that the surfaces within the patient room are safer for the subsequent patients and visitors. Although one of the most deadly flu seasons have just passed, its not only influenza that can be dangerous to patients. UV disinfection kills MRSA, Acinetobacter, E. coli, CRE, VRE, C. difficile and more – keeping everyone from patients to healthcare workers safe from opportunistic infections.
