St. Cloud VA Health Care System in St. Cloud, Minnesota, conducted a study on the effectiveness of Tru-D SmartUVC in operating rooms, endoscopy suites, urology procedure rooms and resident rooms of a community living center.
“The study demonstrated that after manual cleaning, more than half of environmental swabs grew colonies of organisms, which validates the incompleteness of manual cleaning,” said Alice Brewer, MPH, CIC, Director of Clinical Affairs for Tru-D SmartUVC. “This is consistent with other published research on the ineffectiveness of manual cleaning as a stand-alone process. Further, after using Tru-D, not a single environmental swab grew any colonies – proof that Tru-D is an exceptional adjunct to manual cleaning, and that it is capable of inactivating organisms throughout an entire room.”
Throughout the study, environmental swabs were done post-cleaning and prior to Tru-D, as well as after Tru-D was used in each room. A total of 40 environmental swabs were performed; 23 of the swabs grew organisms prior to Tru-D, and zero out of 40 swabs showed growth after the use of Tru-D. VA St. Cloud’s data confirms that Tru-D can eliminate colony growth of important pathogens in real-world settings and persuaded the facility to purchase two of the germ-killing robots.
The study also assessed ease of use and cost per patient visit. Staff were able to perform other duties while the UV cycle was running and be alerted via cellphone when the cycle was complete. Over the course of seven years, purchase price and annual service contract cost for one Tru-D machine amounted to less than six cents per outpatient visit.
The combined results of the study concluded that, “Routine use of UV disinfection is a feasible addition to current infection control and environmental management service measures and may help reduce rates of health care-associated infections and ensure our Veterans a clean, safe environment for their health care.”
