Forget soaps and liquid disinfectants; Ralph (little Joe by the Loyola University medical center), a 3-foot upright robot, may do it just right, and give finishing touches to sanitizing a room.
This cylindrical robot has a rotating telescopic head, which emits UV rays for a duration of 15 minutes in closed rooms, to provide systematic disinfection of the room.
Developed by the Loyola University Health System, Illinois, this medical center is the first one to take disinfection and sanitation to a whole new level.
"Loyola is a world leader in infection control and now the addition of automated room disinfection reinforces our ongoing commitment to patient safety," MD, FIDSA, medical director of the Infection control program at the Loyola University Health System, Jorge Parada, explained. "Loyola is doing everything humanly possible to control disease and that includes robotics."
According to studies, little Joe is capable of eliminating Clostridium difficile in less than 4 minutes, and MRSA in shorter than 2 minutes.
Little Joe is also being used for disinfecting patient's rooms and operating suites.
What's more, little Joe may just the next best thing to get today, with around 100,000 deaths each year occurring due to hospital infections alone.
Loyola takes very seriously its responsibility to protect patients, visitors and our hospital staff from infections and we are early adopters of proven technology as well as best practices," Alex Tomic, infection prevention and control at Loyola, explained.
Also, Loyola is not new to the use of technology in a hospital set-up. They have been using telemedicine robots to help surgeons during the surgery, and also in the emergency department to help patients suffering from stroke.
Little Joe may prove to be the next big medical innovation, and may make disinfection, sanitation and cleaning in infected areas a piece of cake. It may also help reduce the possible risk of infection of those hospital staff who were previously assigned the task of sanitizing hospital rooms.
