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Exploring the Applicability of Robot-Assisted UV Disinfection in Radiology

The importance of infection control procedures in hospital radiology departments has become increasingly apparent in recent months as the impact of COVID-19 has spread across the world. Existing disinfectant procedures that rely on the manual application of chemical-based disinfectants are time cons...

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Autores principales: McGinn, Conor, Scott, Robert, Donnelly, Niamh, Roberts, Kim L., Bogue, Marina, Kiernan, Christine, Beckett, Michael
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7815819/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33501347
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2020.590306
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author McGinn, Conor
Scott, Robert
Donnelly, Niamh
Roberts, Kim L.
Bogue, Marina
Kiernan, Christine
Beckett, Michael
author_facet McGinn, Conor
Scott, Robert
Donnelly, Niamh
Roberts, Kim L.
Bogue, Marina
Kiernan, Christine
Beckett, Michael
author_sort McGinn, Conor
collection PubMed
description The importance of infection control procedures in hospital radiology departments has become increasingly apparent in recent months as the impact of COVID-19 has spread across the world. Existing disinfectant procedures that rely on the manual application of chemical-based disinfectants are time consuming, resource intensive and prone to high degrees of human error. Alternative non-touch disinfection methods, such as Ultraviolet Germicidal Irradiation (UVGI), have the potential to overcome many of the limitations of existing approaches while significantly improving workflow and equipment utilization. The aim of this research was to investigate the germicidal effectiveness and the practical feasibility of using a robotic UVGI device for disinfecting surfaces in a radiology setting. We present the design of a robotic UVGI platform that can be deployed alongside human workers and can operate autonomously within cramped rooms, thereby addressing two important requirements necessary for integrating the technology within radiology settings. In one hospital, we conducted experiments in a CT and X-ray room. In a second hospital, we investigated the germicidal performance of the robot when deployed to disinfect a CT room in <15 minutes, a period which is estimated to be 2–4 times faster than current practice for disinfecting rooms after infectious (or potentially infectious) patients. Findings from both test sites show that UVGI successfully inactivated all of measurable microbial load on 22 out of 24 surfaces. On the remaining two surfaces, UVGI reduced the microbial load by 84 and 95%, respectively. The study also exposes some of the challenges of manually disinfecting radiology suites, revealing high concentrations of microbial load in hard-to-reach places. Our findings provide compelling evidence that UVGI can effectively inactivate microbes on commonly touched surfaces in radiology suites, even if they were only exposed to relatively short bursts of irradiation. Despite the short irradiation period, we demonstrated the ability to inactivate microbes with more complex cell structures and requiring higher UV inactivation energies than SARS-CoV-2, thus indicating high likelihood of effectiveness against coronavirus.
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spelling pubmed-78158192021-01-25 Exploring the Applicability of Robot-Assisted UV Disinfection in Radiology McGinn, Conor Scott, Robert Donnelly, Niamh Roberts, Kim L. Bogue, Marina Kiernan, Christine Beckett, Michael Front Robot AI Robotics and AI The importance of infection control procedures in hospital radiology departments has become increasingly apparent in recent months as the impact of COVID-19 has spread across the world. Existing disinfectant procedures that rely on the manual application of chemical-based disinfectants are time consuming, resource intensive and prone to high degrees of human error. Alternative non-touch disinfection methods, such as Ultraviolet Germicidal Irradiation (UVGI), have the potential to overcome many of the limitations of existing approaches while significantly improving workflow and equipment utilization. The aim of this research was to investigate the germicidal effectiveness and the practical feasibility of using a robotic UVGI device for disinfecting surfaces in a radiology setting. We present the design of a robotic UVGI platform that can be deployed alongside human workers and can operate autonomously within cramped rooms, thereby addressing two important requirements necessary for integrating the technology within radiology settings. In one hospital, we conducted experiments in a CT and X-ray room. In a second hospital, we investigated the germicidal performance of the robot when deployed to disinfect a CT room in <15 minutes, a period which is estimated to be 2–4 times faster than current practice for disinfecting rooms after infectious (or potentially infectious) patients. Findings from both test sites show that UVGI successfully inactivated all of measurable microbial load on 22 out of 24 surfaces. On the remaining two surfaces, UVGI reduced the microbial load by 84 and 95%, respectively. The study also exposes some of the challenges of manually disinfecting radiology suites, revealing high concentrations of microbial load in hard-to-reach places. Our findings provide compelling evidence that UVGI can effectively inactivate microbes on commonly touched surfaces in radiology suites, even if they were only exposed to relatively short bursts of irradiation. Despite the short irradiation period, we demonstrated the ability to inactivate microbes with more complex cell structures and requiring higher UV inactivation energies than SARS-CoV-2, thus indicating high likelihood of effectiveness against coronavirus. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-01-06 /pmc/articles/PMC7815819/ /pubmed/33501347 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2020.590306 Text en Copyright © 2021 McGinn, Scott, Donnelly, Roberts, Bogue, Kiernan and Beckett. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Robotics and AI
McGinn, Conor
Scott, Robert
Donnelly, Niamh
Roberts, Kim L.
Bogue, Marina
Kiernan, Christine
Beckett, Michael
Exploring the Applicability of Robot-Assisted UV Disinfection in Radiology
title Exploring the Applicability of Robot-Assisted UV Disinfection in Radiology
title_full Exploring the Applicability of Robot-Assisted UV Disinfection in Radiology
title_fullStr Exploring the Applicability of Robot-Assisted UV Disinfection in Radiology
title_full_unstemmed Exploring the Applicability of Robot-Assisted UV Disinfection in Radiology
title_short Exploring the Applicability of Robot-Assisted UV Disinfection in Radiology
title_sort exploring the applicability of robot-assisted uv disinfection in radiology
topic Robotics and AI
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7815819/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33501347
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2020.590306
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