A next-generation UVDI-360 Room Sanitizer is now on display in the main lobby of Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital in Valencia to let patients and visitors know the hospital takes their safety seriously, said hospital and UVDI representatives.
The piece of medical technology provides advanced ultraviolet surface disinfection for hospitals, airports, office buildings and public spaces, and Henry Mayo uses it as an extra, voluntary step following traditional sanitizing procedures to prepare a room for the patient and hospital staff to occupy the room next.
Henry Mayo CEO and President Roger Seaver told the media in an unveiling Thursday that it was the Valencia-based UVDI that contacted the hospital and suggested using the equipment.
“One of the highest challenges in health care is, of course, infection control in and of itself,” Seaver said in his opening remarks about the UVDI-360 Room Sanitizer Thursday afternoon at Henry Mayo. “And we’ve been using technology that’s pretty universal in health care today, but (was) not when we first started. We got started because a family business that was here in the Santa Clarita Valley, using the technology in different ways in their business, encouraged us to consider installations here that we took advantage of at the time.”
That family business: UVDI, an acronym for UltraViolet Devices Inc. The technology: the UVDI-360 Room Sanitizer, which Henry Mayo began using about 10 years ago, according to Will Gerard, director of global marketing and product strategy for UVDI.
Next month, UVDI will be rolling out a new version of the UVDI-360, equipped with UV Smart Connect IoT cloud communications, a feature that will streamline the room disinfection process.
Gerard told The Signal before the event on Thursday that UV Smart Connect automatically transfers key device information, such as usage data, to the cloud in real time, eliminating the need to do so manually.
“The direct benefit is time and labor savings for hospital staff who, especially these days, are in a stretch in terms of resources and staffing,” Gerard said. “So, it’s fewer steps for them.”
The technology will also allow the device to be automatically updated, he continued, and provide reports to the various teams who clean and use the rooms, who will now know if a room has been sanitized before entering the space.
In his remarks during the Thursday unveiling, UVDI CEO Peter Veloz said the company would be donating the first new version of the UVDI-360 to Henry Mayo, to arrive in the next month or two. As for the lobby display, which will be there through the fall, he said it was the result of a request from the hospital to offer guests a sort of behind-the-scenes look at what Henry Mayo does to provide additional safety at the facility.
“I want to thank everyone for gathering for a second to talk about what’s behind me,” Veloz told the media at the event on Thursday, “which was an installation inspired by one of Henry Mayo’s own Ed Carson (director of Environmental, Linen, Grounds and Screener Services, who, incidentally, retired on Friday) … For about the last five years, he would sit me down and say, ‘Peter, we should put an installation in the lobby, highlighting what we do with your technology to serve our patients and our family and staff, that we add this extra layer of protection as far as cleaning microorganisms and pathogens in the hospital, and we should tell people about it so they could be even more satisfied with their stay here.’”
The UVDI-360, a 6-foot-tall upright tube containing four germicidal UV-C lamps mounted to a 36-inch lightweight rolling base for mobility, utilizes ultraviolet technology for surface disinfection. UVDI literature states that the device has achieved greater than 99.99% inaction of over 35 microorganisms, including harder-to-kill spores, bacteria, fungi and SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus strain that causes the COVID-19 illness.
According to Veloz, the process of disinfecting a room utilizes a proprietary UV dose verification technology that informs users as to where to place the UVDI-360 and how long to run the device for optimal disinfection results. The device is typically placed in two separate spots of an average-sized patient room, he said, and Gerard added that it’ll run in each spot for about five minutes, covering 16 feet in diameter.
“Time is important,” Veloz pointed out. “And instead of a generalized recommendation, we actually make a very specific recommendation based upon our technology that helps set those standards. We do that for the operating room and for all patient rooms.”
According to UVDI literature, the UVDI-360 Room Sanitizer is globally trusted by more than 1,100 leading hospitals in 27 countries, where it has been independently proven effective in 15 peer-reviewed, published hospital studies.
For more information about UVDI and the UVDI-360 Room Sanitizer, go to the company’s website at UVDI.com.
