Xenex X machine

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Specializes in ICU.

Im currently watching this show called xploration earth 2050, and it did a segment on this machine called Xenex X, which uses UV-C rays to kill hard to kill bacteria/viruses in the hospital. Does anyone have this in their hospital?

Specializes in OR, Nursing Professional Development.

Yep, and I'd wager it's a bunch of BS. Someone went around with swabs after this thing got used (room cleaned first), and the numbers weren't any better than when we cleaned with the standard stuff. It's all about how the room is cleaned and that the cleaning materials aren't used in more than one room- we actually had an issue in my OR where the housekeeping staff were using the same dirty rag on all 30 ORs instead of at the very least a new rag for each room.

Specializes in ICU.

Wow.. talking about sanitation problems. . Especially not needed for the OR. Imma look and see if I can find that study.

Specializes in Infection Control, Employee Health & TB.

We had this in the last acute care hospital I worked at. I hope you were able to find some of the published research supporting reduced HAIs. I came across a bunch! It's relatively new technology so research that has been done is really starting to show some excellent trends. Keep in mind it doesn't replace cleaning, but is an adjunct to the sanitation process. I even saw a report on it improving HCAPS scores because they made an effort to educate patients on the extra mile they were going to make sure they were safe. Be sure and pay attention to how they test for evidence that it works. Swabs that are cultured should be pretty reliable if they were obtained the same way. But, if ATP swabs are done your counts will go up after xenon just by the nature of how it kills. It pulverizes the organisms into many smaller pieces.

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