Stamford Hospital, located in Connecticut, US, has become the first in the region to use Xenex Healthcare Services’ room disinfection technology to enhance patient safety.
The new moveable room disinfection device delivers ultraviolet (UV) light, using pulsed xenon, across patient rooms to destroy viral and bacterial organisms, bacterial spores and a range of superbugs, including Clostridium difficile spores, MRSA, VRE and Acinetobacter.
Stamford Hospital infectious diseases and microbiology director Dr. Michael Parry said Xenex does a thorough job of rapidly killing all major classes of microorganisms without contact or chemicals.
"We have a strong infection prevention programme in place, and the Xenex technology allows us to be even more proactive in protecting the health of our patients and staff," Dr. Parry added.
Room disinfection technology is used in conjunction with the broad cleaning services delivered by the hospital’s environmental services team, which exposes all the possible areas of bacterial presence to UV light.
Xenex technology is placed in turn on each side of the bed, and the remaining medical equipment that needs disinfecting can be placed in the room simultaneously.
Xenex chief scientific officer Dr. Mark Stibich said: "We are confident that our device is going to help them because hospitals around the US are reporting fewer hospital-acquired infections after using our technology in their facilities."