Pocono Medical Center, a not-for-profit regional healthcare facility in Monroe County, PA, has added the germ-eliminating robot, Tru-D SmartUVC. The medical center provides clinical, specialized and acute care services backed by a team of more than 300 providers and physicians.
Tru-D provides enhanced terminal room disinfection through the use of UVC light energy. After environmental services staff cleans a room using traditional methods, Tru-D is brought in to complete the disinfection process.
The 5-foot-5 robot operates from a single position and administers a single cycle of UV light, killing up to 99.9 percent of C. diff, MRSA, MERS, Ebola and many other harmful pathogens. Short for “total room ultraviolet disinfection,” Tru-D takes the minimum time necessary to disinfect an entire room, including shadowed areas. Once the cleaning cycle is complete, Tru-D automatically shuts down and sends an audio and/or text message alert to the operator that disinfection is complete.
The Tru-D 5-foot-5 germ-eliminating robot. (Credit: Tru-D SmartUVC)
Leading researchers and infection preventionists have begun to stress the importance of the use of UV in terminal room cleaning strategies. At the recent APIC annual conference, Dr. William A. Rutala from the University of North Carolina Health Care spoke on the need for no-touch room disinfection methods such as Tru-D.
As more independent studies emerge, including the first-ever randomized clinical trial on UV—the Benefits of Enhanced Terminal Room Disinfection (BETR-D) study – the use of UV disinfection devices will become more widely adopted, if not mandated.
The pioneer in UV disinfection, Tru-D was the only device of its kind selected for the first-ever randomized, clinical trial on UVC disinfection because of its Sensor360 technology that eliminates any chance of human error in the disinfection process. Results of the landmark BETR-D study proved that enhanced terminal room disinfection strategies decreased the cumulative incidence of multidrug-resistant organisms by up to 30 percent, and the largest decreases were seen when Tru-D was added to the standard cleaning strategy.
