5. Be creative. At
Elmhurst, they
devised a test before
they bought their
robots, to see whether
the aerosolized agent
employed by the robot
actually worked. "We
challenged the compa-
ny," says Ms.
Schmocker. "We
worked with microbi-
ology and inoculated a
patient room with
everything you can think of — vancomycin-resistant enterococci, car-
bapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae, MRSA, C. diff — and we doc-
umented where we had done the culturing. After the whole proce-
dure, we cultured again and honest to goodness, there was no growth.
They had eradicated everything."
Impressed and emboldened, they also now use the robots in the
fight against the bedbugs, scabies and lice that patients sometimes
carry into the hospital. The aerosolized format takes longer to set up
and carry out, because vents and doors have to be sealed off, but
they've also begun using the robot to disinfect pharmacy compound-
ing and, when there's time, virtually everything else they can think of.
One of the advantages of the system is that it disinfects everything
in range, says Ms. Schmocker. "We love that we can wheel it into a
room, and also take equipment, IV pumps, glucometers, stethoscopes
— whatever we want — and pack as much as we can in there," she
says, "and it will disinfect everything."
OSM
A U G U S T 2 0 1 7 • O U T PA T I E N TS U R G E R Y. N E T • 7 1
• ONE GOOD TURN Using a rotational system, Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo,
Calif., manages to disinfect 19 ORs and procedure rooms at least every other night.
Joel
Rahmatulla
