Cooley Dickinson Hospital and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, both in Northampton, employ strict sanitizing practices to promote a "culture of infection prevention."
Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton uses pulsing ultraviolet light to kill disease-causing organisms in hospital rooms and treatment areas.NORHTAMPTON -- In the war against serious, sometimes deadly, infections that can thrive in their midst, hospitals are turning to new techniques and technologies to subdue the enemy.
Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton was among the first hospitals in the nation to sanitize rooms using a system that bathes the empty room in pulsing ultraviolet light in order to kill disease-causing organisms.
Over the past year, the hospital saw an 82 percent drop in one particular type of superbug, Clostridium difficile, or C.diff, a nasty bacteria that can cause diarrhea, sepsis and even death. It’s estimated that several hundred thousand Americans a year are infected with C.diff, five percent of whom die.
“This decrease translates to many more people leaving the hospital safer and with better outcomes,” says Dr. Joanne Levin, the medical director for infection prevention at the hospital.
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, also in Northampton, is among 152 veterans’ medical centers nationwide that took part in a 2007-2010 effort to reduce infections of methicillin-resistant staph aureus, or MRSA, a drug-resistant bacteria that kills an estimated 19,000 people a year during hospital stays.
Each of the hospitals screened entering patients for signs of MRSA, placed hand-sanitizers throughout the hospital for employees and patients, and promoted a culture of infection prevention and control within the medical center.
As a result, MRSA infections fell 62 percent in VA intensive-care units over the three years, and they fell 45 percent in other areas of the hospitals.
The VA’s undersecretary for health, Dr. Robert Petzel, called the effort “a landmark initiative.”
“No one should have to worry about acquiring an illness or infection from the place they trust to deliver their care,” he said.
Since the 1930s, antibiotics have been the prime weapon to fight the growth of disease-causing organisms in the body. During World War II, penicillin became the first antibiotic to be mass-produced and remains among the most widely used today.
However, some organisms have evolved into antibiotic-resistant superbugs that can thrive in hospitals, where conditions can be ripe for their proliferation. People in a weakened condition are often crowded together, and there can be a great deal of human contact.
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in the Leeds section of Northampton uses a variety of sanitizing practices to wipe out infectious germs that can spread to patients.It’s long been known that ultraviolet (UV) light can kill bacteria and viruses by damaging their DNA. But, it was thought that using UV lights to sanitize hospital rooms was too costly and inefficient compared to other methods. The rise of superbugs caused health officials to re-examine the technique.
Cooley Dickinson now uses a system made by Xenex, a Texas-based company. A mobile cart carrying a UV light is moved into a room that is due to be cleaned between patients, explained hospital spokeswoman Christina M. Trinchero.
“The process is that they first clean a bathroom with standard cleaning products. Once the bathroom is clean, they wheel the portable UV room disinfection device into the bathroom, close the door, and use a remote to activate the machine. The light will ‘flash’ in the bathroom for about seven minutes,” she said.
“The UV light bounces off the surfaces in the room. It penetrates the cell wall of the C.diff germ, as well as other organisms that might be present. The UV light fuses the DNA of the C.diff germ together, leading to instant damage, the inability to reproduce ... (which) kills the organism,” Trinchero said.
While the UV light is disinfecting the bathroom, the worker cleans the patient’s main room. Once that is done, the cart is positioned in that room, the worker puts up a protective shade in the window, exits the room, and uses a remote control to trigger the system again.
“Depending on the size of the room, a room could get two UV light treatments. The total room-cleaning time is 30 to 35 minutes,” Trinchero said.
Nationwide, about one in 20 hospital patients acquired hospital-borne infections in 2002, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. The agency is following all the experiments among hospitals to reduce the infection rate, but has yet to make a recommendation on the optimum procedures to follow.