- [Announcer] It might look like some type of robot
for a new science fiction movie, but it's not.
- [Dr. Anderson] It's about five and a half feet tall,
it's a cylinder with light bulbs all around.
- [Announcer] It's also not some high-tech weapons system.
- [Dr. Anderson] When it turns, the light bulbs light up
and it is irradiating, illuminating an entire room.
- [Announcer] This machine is a germ killer.
- [Machine] Please prepare the room for optimal disinfection
and secure all entrances.
- [Announcer] You can think of it as a kind of
mechanical cross between a steril handi wipe
and an antibacterial spray.
- [Dr. Anderson] So we would use it by
rolling it into a room,
walking out of the room after preparing it,
and, by remote control, would turn the machine on.
- [Announcer] The device emits a type of
ultraviolet light called UVC.
You've probably heard about ultraviolet light before
when doctors talk about sunburn,
but they're referring to UVA and UVB light.
- [Dr. Anderson] Obviously, we've all heard about
what UV does to skin, for example, right?
When you're supposed to wear sunblock
because UV light can cause damage to the cells in our skin.
Well, you can think of the UV
in these machines as acting similarly.
And it actually impacts the DNA of the bacteria,
so it penetrates within the bacteria
and disrupts the DNA, thereby killing the bacteria.
- [Announcer] UVC light is a little
further down the spectrum.
It is a shorter wavelength,
which means it doesn't cause skin cancer in humans,
but it does kill bacteria.
A study by researchers at Duke University Health System
Hospitals finds the germ killing machine may help hospitals
in their fight to keep drug resistant bacteria
from lingering in patient rooms and causing new infections.
The study focused on four drug resistant organisms.
This is MRSA bacteria.
It's the most common of the superbugs.
- [Dr. Anderson] Then there's VRE,
which stands for Vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus.
C. difficile and probably after MRSA,
another one of those that people
are hearing more about are clostridium difficile.
And then the fourth one is acinetobacter.
- [Announcer] And it turns out,
those bacteria can live on in the environment,
even after a patient has left a room and it's been cleaned.
To be clear, researchers found hospitals
aren't cleaning using the proper disinfectants.
- [Dr. Anderson] And disinfectants
like that are highly effective.
That's the real answer here,
is that those really do work.
The issue is a little bit more complicated than that though,
and because it's related to making sure
you have enough time to clean rooms.
And if you've ever been in a hospital room,
you see that there are really a lot more
nooks and crannies in there than you might expect
when you think about these sophisticated beds
and the other equipment that might be in there.
So the bottom line, it's actually really difficult to clean
a hospital room from top to bottom like we would like to.
And so what this machine does is add to that chemical clean.
We make sure we get as many of
the surfaces as we can with the chemicals
but then we're adding on this additional tool.
- [Machine] Total room disinfection in process.
- [Announcer] It takes about 30 minutes
for the machine to do it's germ killing work.
Researchers found when UVC light
was combined with traditional cleaning,
the overall transmission of superbugs decreased by 30%.
- [Dr. Anderson] The other part of that story,
really we're taking advantage of the UV light,
because it is reflective,
and so we can actually germs that are right here
on top of the table in direct sight with the UV machine,
but also because the UV light bounces around,
we can also kill germs underneath tables,
and we have learned that when we
measure how well our rooms get cleaned,
there are a few of those kind of under the table areas
that don't often get cleaned,
or maybe not cleaned as often as we would like for them to.
- [Announcer] Areas such as the TV remote,
the light switch, or the corner of a room.
The technology was born in the midst
of bio terrorism research.
Companies are looking for other ways to market the product.
Healthcare was the obvious choice.
And researchers continue to look at other ways
hospitals can cut infection rates for all pathogens.
But the germ killing robot's effectiveness
in reducing infection risks and reducing cost
is catching the interest of hospitals.
- [Dr. Anderson] You can't decide which room you go into,
so you want to make sure that the hospital
that you are being admitted to is doing everything they can
to prevent you from being exposed to these pathogens.
And, what we, again, have learned is that there are
certain rooms that are riskier than others,
and by using technologies like this,
we can reduce that risk back to a lower level,
and make sure that we're keeping you safe
when you come into the hospital.