In the November/December 2017 issue of Surgical Products, the winners of this year’s Excellence In Surgical Products (ESP) Awards are revealed.
Day by day, we’ll also share the results here, including some additional details about the honored products.
Category: INFECTION CONTROL
Runner-Up: CLOROX HEALTHCARE OPTIMUM-UV ENLIGHT SYSTEM
The Clorox Healthcare Optimum-UV Enlight System is an all-in-one solution providing powerful surface treatment enhanced by ultraviolet-C (UV-C) technology to kill more than 30 pathogens, including Clostridium difficile spores, carbapenem-resistant enterobacteriaceae (CRE), vancomycin-resistant Enterococci (VRE), and Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), for superior infection prevention and patient safety. The Optimum-UV Enlight System provides the optimal balance of strong performance, quality, user-friendly design, and affordability, with advanced data collection and reporting capabilities that help healthcare facilities ensure they are maximizing device usage and getting the efficacy they are counting on.
To learn more, Surgical Products reached out to Clorox.
How does the product contribute to better outcomes?
The Clorox Healthcare Optimum-UV Enlight System improves patient and staff safety by offering an extra layer of protection and killing microorganisms in high-risk settings or areas of the healthcare environment that may otherwise be missed or insufficiently addressed due to human error.
Dr. David Pegues, Medical Director of Healthcare Epidemiology and Infection Control at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania led a study using the Optimum-UV System in hospital rooms in hematology and oncology units after cleaning crews finished their standard cleaning protocol. The study showed that use of the UV device helped reduce the rates of transmission of C. difficile among cancer inpatients — mostly blood cancer patients, a group more vulnerable to hospital-acquired infections — by 25 percent. It also resulted in substantial healthcare savings, estimated between $350,000 and $1.5 million annually.
(Image credit: Clorox Healthcare)
Why do you think readers are interested in learning more about the product?
One of the things that makes this study interesting for environmental service professionals and infection prevention leaders in surgical settings is that the results were achieved on units that had persistently high C. difficile infection rates despite high compliance with other evidence-based prevention measures. The results show that improving environmental hygiene by implementing UV following routine terminal cleaning with bleach made a big difference — decreasing infection rates and associated costs — in a high-risk setting where other measures had not.
Importantly, the study also showed that implementing the Optimum-UV System achieved these results without adversely impacting room turnaround — a key consideration for surgical settings. Compared with non-study units during the intervention period, use of the Optimum-UV System was associated with only 5.2 additional minutes in weekly mean room-cleaning time and 6.9 additional minutes in turnaround time.
