Applying Restoration Industry Techniques to Health Care Facilities

Others have written about the subject in my title. I want to take it one step further and propose a solution to help automatically clean and disinfect a whole room at a time. First I would like to define the following terms so there is no misunderstanding. Sanitation is reducing micro organisms to a safe level. Disinfecting is killing all micro organisms and viruses. All actually means to a high level, close to 100 %. No procedure is perfect. Autoclaving is subjecting items to be sterilized to high pressure steam for about 15 minutes. Air is removed from the chamber during this process and this makes for faster sterilization. Sterilization kills all micro organisms, viruses and their spores.

I would like to point out that employees of Hospitals and other Health Care Facilities are doing their jobs. They are using the equipment and chemicals they are told to use. Micro organisms can become resistant to the cleaning agents being used to kill them. One basic suggestion I think would help this situation, is to make health care facilities smaller or as small as possible. The benefit of having smaller more numerous health care facilities would be the following. In the event an MDRO (Multiple Drug Resistant Organism) or Superbug becomes resistant in one facility the others may be unaffected.. If all attempts to rid a health care facility of a MDRO, Virus, or other contaminant, then the facility can be vacated and isolated. Temporary modular structures can be used in the interim. If these modular structures become contaminated and cannot be made safe, then they can be incinerated and replaced with new ones.

Now back to the problem of automatically sterilizing one room at a time. Ultrasonic cleaning has been a great benefit to the health care industry. During ultrasonic cleaning, compression waves are created in the fluid which destroy life forms by physical means (ripping them apart) rather than chemical means. Life forms and contaminants cannot develop a resistance to ultrasonic cleaning. Ultrasonic cleaning is about 99 % effective and always works. Putting small items into an ultrasonic cleaning machine, takes care of one problem. There are ceilings, walls, floors and other permanent structures in a room that can be cleaned by ultrasonic means. Ultrasonic cleaning introduces high frequency sound waves into water or a medium appropriate for the item being cleaned. A transducer is mounted in the chamber walls or is lowered into the chamber to create the compression waves which do the cleaning. In medical applications the cleaning solution temperature is about 100 degress F ( 30 C).

I am proposing to clean a room having water tight doors, windows, vents and any other openings sealed. The room can be emptied of small items and anything else that's not permanently fixed. A transducer can be lowered into the room and ultrasonic cleaning can be accomplished. The fluid would be pumped into the room before cleaning and be re-cycled for later use. Blowers could air dry the room of cleaning medium. This process or one like it could make cleaning a room less labor intensive and more effective.