Put it On the Board, 7/13

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At Methodist in Houston, a germ killer moves in

The Methodist Hospital in Houston will put a 5-foot-5 robot to work killing influenza, norovirus, C. difficile, MRSA, and other pathogens in patient rooms, ICUs, and surgery suites. Its weapon: ultraviolet light.

The Total Room Ultraviolet Disinfector SmartUVC robot, called TRU-D and made by Lumalier, uses technology that measures reflected UVC emissions and automatically calculates pathogen-lethal UV doses. The company says more than 100 such devices are used in hospitals and medical facilities in the U.S. and Canada.

After a hospital staff member cleans a room using traditional methods, the TRU-D device is placed in the center of the room to finish the job by scanning and flooding the space with germicidal energy from its UVC lamps.

“Although ultraviolet germicidal irradiation is an old technology, advancements in delivery and application have made it a very effective tool in combating the transmission of common hospital pathogens,” says Mario Soares, Methodist’s director of environmental health and infection prevention and control.

Leica unveils Aperio AT2

Leica Biosystems launched on July 1 its Aperio AT2 image capture device.

The technology built into the Aperio AT2 reduces overhead and technician hours spent in front of the image capture device, “proven by the tissue finding accuracy, focusing, automated magnification selection, and less than two percent rescan rate, all aimed to achieve a very high-sustained throughput,” Leica chief medical officer Jared Schwartz, MD, PhD, said in a statement.