Infection Control and Human Response in Healthcare Environments

Big Idea Alert! Big Idea Alert! In class the other day we were discussing how to design for infection control in health care environments.  Our teacher pointed us in the direction of a study that found that many surfaces in hospital rooms are not adequately cleaned between patients.  That means that the little old lady with walking pneumonia walked out of the hospital and left her little old germs behind to infect you!  After hospital cleaning crew were trained the amount of germs left on surfaces did decrease but there were still far too many surfaces that were left unclean. 

This lack of clean surfaces poses a threat to everyone’s health.  First the individual in the hospital, their current condition may make them more susceptible to infection.   Their visitors, coming to console their friend or family member may be unknowingly contracting a germ that will put them in the hospital too.  The last group of people subject to these persistent germs is the hospital staff.  As a child, no matter how sick I was, my mother never caught what I had; it was as though she was immune.  It seems as though we consider our healthcare professionals to be immune to the germs we carry but in fact, they are not.

Thankfully my classmates and I have come up with a solution to the problems with post-occupancy hospital room clean-up.  Have you heard of these germ killing UV lights? Sites like this one market them to allergy suffers. Allergybyersclub.com said this about the light:

This revolutionary invention removes 99.9% of germs and bacteria in only twenty seconds, using the effective sterilization power of UV-C light. Simply wave the lightweight and easy to use light wand over any surface to obtain a germ-free and sanitized home. The wand is also beneficial to the safety of your children and the environment since it uses no harmful chemicals to achieve a sanitized home for your family.

What a neat product right? Well why not take it to the next level? Install these lights in hospital rooms.  Between patients the rooms can be locked and treated with the UV lights which would kill 99.9% of germs in the rooms.  Even on the surfaces that the cleaning staff may have forgotten to wipe down.  I’m going to get to work on getting this new product on the market. Until UV-C lights are in hospital rooms everywhere read this article on how to stay safe from germs in hospitals, published by the American Society for Healthcare Environmental Services.

http://www.ahe.org/ahe/content/learn/09142009-es-week-ashes-apic.pdf