- The most powerful UV light disinfection robot, named IPT 3200 can clean an entire room within 15 minutes.
- It’s based on Field Balance, PowerBoost and SmartDosage UV technologies.
- After 6 months of its deployment, the McLaren Oakland hospital saved more than $236,000 from reduced Health associated infections.
Over the last few couple of years, Health associated infections (HAIs) — infections patients can get while receiving medical treatment in the hospital — has decreased significantly. However, there is still a lot of space for major improvements. At present, 1 in 25 patients is infected with at least one HAI on a daily basis, CDC report.
Current manual cleaning methods aren’t much effective against bacteria. That’s why some hospitals use ultraviolet disinfection machines to prevent the development and spread of HAIs caused by several dangerous and lethal pathogens.
Now, Infection Prevention Technologies (IPT) have developed a new germ-killing system that uses continuous UVC lamps to produce 20 times more UVC output than xenon pulse systems, and is 3 times stronger than other continuous light competitors. They have named it IPT 3200 – the most powerful UV light disinfection machine built so far.
The machine has the capability to disinfect the entire room, including indirect and shadow areas, within several minutes, leaving it safe for the next patient.
How UV Light Kills Bacteria?
The UV light is categorized into 3 groups based on the wavelength: UV-A, UV-B and UV-C spectrums. UV-C (100–280 nanometer wavelength) is used to inactivate or kill microorganism by destroying their DNA.
UV radiation breaks the chemical bonds that hold DNA atoms together in the microorganism. Exposure to UV light for several minutes ensures the complete kill-off of all microorganisms (germs).
Although UV light penetrates the cells, it doesn’t change air, water and food being treated. Dead bacterias, organic and inorganic particles are not removed from the sterilized medium. The radiation adds nothing to the medium expect energy. That’s why ultraviolet germicidal irradiation is used in a wide range of applications, including air, food and water purification.
IPT 3200 Robot
Credit: Infection Prevention Technologies
Clostridium difficile is one of the most resilient HAIs pathogens that makes up 20% of cases of antibiotic-associated diarrhea. Manual cleaning has proven to be less than 50% effective in removing such pathogens. In particular, regularly-touched surfaces like bed rails, door knobs, TV remote controls, toilet handles and telephone handsets, are often missed when cleaning.
That’s where UV disinfection machine comes in with extraordinary cleaning capabilities. The IPT 3200 can effectively clean hospital room within 15 minutes, freeing up service-staff to perform other tasks. It can be operated via wireless handheld controller and IPT’s cloud-based management system, called Steri-Trak.
It is based on Field Balance, PowerBoost and SmartDosage UV technologies to automatically measure surrounding conditions (like temperature, humidity and room size) in real time to determine the suitable amount of dosage required for complete disinfection.
At present, it only works in a locked room and turns off if it senses any motion. Walking into a room while it’s running would probably cost you a little bit of sunburn and visual impairment.
Read: New Ultraviolet Light System Improves The Crop Yield By 26%
The system has already been tested in McLaren Oakland Hosptial: After 6 months of deployment, the hospital saved more than $236,000 from reduced HAI incidents.
The results show that UV disinfection machines are highly efficient in cleaning hospital environments. While they are not heavily used yet, they may be the promising future of sterilization technologies.
