SARASOTA, Fla. — Sarasota Memorial Hospital has two robots continuously making rounds and another in the operating room killing germs.
Administrators bought the Total Room Ultraviolet Disinfector or TRU-D before the Ebola outbreak a few years ago. The hospital staff primarily uses them for rooms where there's an extra concern like for those with MRSA or are in isolation.
“It scans the room so it knows the size and light refraction, and it simply for about 30 minutes cycles through and spreads that UV light to kill almost a hundred percent of pathogens that are concerning that could cause infection,” SMH spokesperson Allison Warren told 10News.
The robots are no substitute for cleaning though. The hospital crews will still go in a disinfect everything.
“This is really about patient safety. We still go in and disinfect the rooms and per CDC guidelines we’re still going into those quarantine rooms and those isolation rooms and we are completely disinfecting them with hydrogen peroxide. Our staff has been working around the clock. Environmental services have been amazing making sure these rooms are clean. This is just that extra layer of guaranteeing patient safety as much as we can,” Warren said.
The makers of TRU-D don't have the data to suggest the robot will kill COVID-19, but it has been effective against other strains of coronavirus.
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