pleted," she says. "So I can determine if there was a fallout, and if so, I
can work with environmental services to determine why. Was the
room closed? Were there trauma cases in the OR? Sometimes there are
reasons you can't get into a room."
All of the ORs at Lehigh Valley are done on a rotational basis, too,
says Ms. Burger. "It can take us a week to get through all of them, but
we know that every week, they get at least get one exposure."
3. Fight clusters. At Lehigh Valley, any time there's a cluster out-
break — which they define as 3 or more cases in a given unit of
methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, Acinetobacter or some
other infection — a robot is put into action until that cluster is elimi-
nated. "We have clear evidence that when we use the robot along with
other interventions, we're able to stop a cluster outbreak," says Ms.
Burger.
4. Take advantage of downtime. When the OSS Health
Ambulatory Surgery Center in York, Pa., closes down for the night, the
center's 2 disinfecting robots light up the night, hitting all 4 OR suites,
as well as pre-op, PACU, breakrooms, restrooms and lounges — with
the help of environmental services, of course.
The process takes about an hour and 20 minutes and some extra labor,
but it helps provide peace of mind, says Director of Ancillary Services
Mike Nestlebush, MBA, CMRP. "We do a tremendous amount of manual
cleaning, but that gets you to a certain place and then kind of hits a
wall," he says. "The technology behind the UV robots allows us to not be
limited by what the environmental services staff can clean. It can hit
areas that they may not be hitting as well as they should, or that they
can't reach."
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