DETROIT–Freestyle Parnters LLC announced that frontline nurses who participated in a qualitative study embrace using filtered Far UV-C handheld devices to safely decontaminate in-hospital surfaces and reduce healthcare acquired infections in and around the patient care environment.
The purpose of the study was to gain user feedback and resulted in the key finding that nurses are willing to use filtered Far UV-C handheld devices provided they are valuable to patient care and do not hinder the provision of care.
The Central Texas Veterans Health Care System conducted the study, led by Piyali Chatterjee, research investigator chair, and her study team. User feedback themes that emerged include time use, complexity, safety (patient and nurse), and technology characteristics. After the opportunity to interact with a device prototype, the participants were open to the idea of a handheld filtered Far UV-C device and they provided valuable feedback on potential uses for such a device as well as design elements that would facilitate adoption of such a device. The full peer-reviewed study is published in Nursing & Health Sciences.
Healthcare acquired infections are a life-threatening issue for patients and a costly issue for healthcare facilities. It is estimated there are more than 1.7 million such infections in U.S. hospitals that cost the healthcare system $28 billion to $33 billion in related charges annually. New technology and new disinfection approaches are needed as surface pathogens can persist for days to months and studies show that 50% of surfaces in the healthcare environment do not receive adequate levels of disinfection during manual chemical cleaning.
Freestyle Partners, LLC provided funding and support for this study.