How UV Light Disinfection Prevents Infection & Improves Patient Safety

Healthcare facility management involves balancing many different parts, which can include things like sticking to a set budget, ensuring patient safety, and improving the reputation of your hospital. This last point is perhaps the most difficult to meet, as the image of your facility depends largely on the experience that your patients have had while staying there.

In order to ensure that your patients have an experience in your hospital that is positive and isn’t damaging to your reputation, it’s important to keep their journey in mind and view your facility from their point of view. One of the ways you can improve patient experience is through disinfection and cleaning methods that utilize UV sterilization.

What is UV Disinfection?

UV disinfection involves using ultraviolet light to kill infectious particles and pathogens like bacteria, viruses, and fungi. Ultraviolet light is light that has a shorter wavelength than visible light, which means that it is able to penetrate the physical bodies of pathogens rather than illuminating them.

Penetrating the bodies of pathogens destroys them in ways that traditional disinfection is unable to accomplish. After the physical bodies of pathogens are destroyed, their infectious capabilities are rendered inert.

Because UV disinfection is disinfection with light, it is able to work on a much larger scale and in more ways than other forms of sterilization and disinfection. UV disinfection can be used for things like food and water disinfection, hard surface cleaning, air filtration and disinfection, and hard-to-clean areas within a healthcare facility.

How UV Disinfection is Used in a Healthcare Setting

UV disinfection is likely never going to take the place of traditional cleaning and disinfection methods, but using it as a supplemental sterilization method, particularly in a healthcare setting, can have a significant impact.

Devices that utilize ultraviolet (UV) light can help eliminate some of the human error that comes with traditional disinfection because of their sterilization power and the effectiveness of their cleaning. In hospitals, UV devices can clean difficult areas and are effective on both horizontal and vertical surfaces. They also can disinfect the air when used in conjunction through an air filtration device.

In addition, UV devices are incredibly efficient, which can be helpful in the fast-paced environment of a hospital or other healthcare facility.

UV Disinfection and Patient Experience

The reputation of your healthcare facility is based on the experience that your patients and guests have while within the facility. Specifically, the cleanliness of your healthcare facility leaves a huge impact on your patients, and if they think that your facility isn’t meeting cleanliness standards, it will reflect poorly on your management and your hospital’s image.

UV disinfection can help you prove to your patients that you are taking their safety and their health seriously. Even if patients don’t understand exactly how effective a UV disinfection device or lamp can be, the use of advanced technology in itself is often enough to convince people that you are taking every means necessary to provide for their safety.

Having visible UV devices in your facility can help patients “see” the deep cleanliness of your facility and the dedication you have to infection control.

The Best Tools for UV Disinfection

There are many different UV disinfection tools available to healthcare facility managers, and each of the various brands and types of UV devices or lamps have individual metrics and will perform differently.

Of all these tools, we recommend Airborne Disinfection Module with UV-FORCE® and GermBuster Room Air Purifier with UV-FORCE®. Both can destroy 99.99% of all bacteria in less than 4 seconds, easily making them the most competitive tools for UV sterilization available on the market today. UV-FORCE technology, as the name implies, uses far-UVC light, which are even shorter in wavelength than traditional UV-C light, meaning that it is even more effective at destroying the bodies of infectious pathogens.

In addition, far-UVC light is less harmful than traditional UV-C light. UV-C light, which is used in most UV sterilization devices, can penetrate human skin and cause damage to rubber and plastic materials over time. Plus, UV-C lamps often use mercury, which makes them hazardous. To contrast, far-UVC light is less harmful to both people and equipment, making it a better long-term option for both effective disinfection and patient safety.

To learn more about our UV-FORCE technology which utilized far-UVC light, click on the link below. The downloadable fact sheet can help you understand exactly how UV-FORCE can improve patient experience in your healthcare facility.