JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Baptist Health Jacksonville has a new high-tech tool in its infection-prevention toolkit: Germ-zapping robots that use ultraviolet light to destroy bacteria, viruses, mold and other pathogens.
The robots are part of a new effort to keep both patients and visitors from catching illnesses they don't already have.
"It's an added tool that will cleanse the room, if you will, in terms of reducing infection opportunities," said Michael Mayo, hospital president of Baptist Medical Center Jacksonville
Mayo said it's not a substitute for cleaning the room. It's just added protection to make the hospital as sanitary as possible.
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The robots are sent in to both operating rooms and patient rooms after cleaning crews do their jobs.
"In five minutes we are able to kill things like C-Diff that are very hard to kill that takes bleach 10 minutes to kill and that's because it's able to fry the DNA of the bacteria or virus," said Rachael Sparks, technical director for Xenex Disinfection Services.
The robots could also be helpful during an illness breakout like the world saw with Ebola.
"When the whole Ebola crisis came out -- these certainly can be utilized against the Ebola virus and begin disinfecting and deactivate the virus as well," said Kristin Vondrak, vice president and chief quality officer.
Baptist Health has seven of the germ-zapping robots deployed across the Baptist Health hospitals in the Jacksonville area, including Wolfson Children's Hospital, which is the first children's hospital in Florida to use them.