Feb 6, 2013 | Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology
The study found that a Robotic vapor-dispersing device kills and prevents spread of Drug-Resistant Organisms in high-risk patients by 64%
There is a new technology for disinfecting healthcare facilities that is likely to be useful for clinical laboratories and anatomic pathology groups.
A team at Johns Hopkins University Hospital recently published a study about their institution’s use of hydrogen peroxide vapor to disinfect hospital rooms.
The study was conducted over two and one-half years and involved hospital rooms used by thousands of patients. The goal of this study was to verify the effectiveness of a new robot-like device, known as Bioquell Q-10. This system disperses a hydrogen peroxide vapor to disinfect hospital rooms and was described in a news release issued by Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins University Hospital. (more…)
Jan 18, 2013 | Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory Instruments & Laboratory Equipment, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology
In the future, pathologists and clinical laboratory administrators may need to plan for a canine addition to their traditional laboratory staff
See Cliff sniff C. diff! No, that’s not a line from a new reading primer. In fact, it refers to one hospital’s innovation for early detection of Clostridium difficile (C. diff): a two-year-old beagle named Cliff. Cliff the Beagle is faster at detecting certain infections than the standard clinical laboratory tests used daily in hospitals throughout the world.
Researchers from Vrije University Medical Center (VUMC) in Amsterdam successfully used the trained beagle to detect the smell of C. difficile in hospitals. The researchers believe trained canine disease detectives like Cliff could be a cheap and effective way to conduct routine C. diff screening in hospitals. (more…)
Feb 13, 2012 | Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Management & Operations
Vapor-based fumigant system could prove useful in disinfecting microbiology labs, clinical labs, and histology labs
There’s a new technology that bears great promise for improving existing methods of disinfecting hospital rooms and health facilities, including clinical laboratories. This pioneering work was developed as part of a collaboration involving infection control expert Dick Zoutman, M.D., FRCPC, who is affiliated with Queen’s University of Kingston, Ontario, Canada.
This technology is a vapor-based fumigant system and is coming to market with the name AsepticSure. It will be sold by Medizone International, Inc.. The invention makes a strong argument for changing the way hospital rooms and other healthcare facilities are disinfected. (more…)
Apr 1, 2009 | Compliance, Legal, and Malpractice, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Laboratory Testing
As more attention is paid to reducing the number of healthcare-associated infections (HIAs), hospitals and health systems respond with proactive programs to eliminate many obvious sources of such infections. In turn, this affects hospital laboratories, since they play a key role in every hospital’s infection control program.
The basic statistics are stunning. Hospital-acquired infections (HIAs) affect nearly 2 million Americans annually, resulting in 90,000 deaths and up to $6.5 billion in extra costs, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
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