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Saint Mary’s Hospital installs light fixtures that help keep patients safe

December 12, 2018 Follow @HFToday

Saint Mary’s Hospital is the first hospital in New England to install operating room light fixtures that help reduce the risk of surgical site infections, by killing harmful bacteria.

Saint Mary’s Hospital has installed Indigo-Clean™ continuous environmental disinfection operating room light fixtures. This technology utilizes LEDs to generate visible white light that also contains a narrow spectrum of indigo colored light. The indigo color uses a different “frequency” to automatically, safely and continuously disinfect the air, as well as hard and soft surfaces. The indigo light is absorbed by molecules within the bacteria, which produces a chemical reaction that kills the bacteria from the inside. The light is not harmful to patients or surfaces.

Indigo-Clean bolsters current disinfecting efforts to reduce harmful bacteria in the environment. Recent hospital research studies have proven significant antimicrobial kill rates of more than 70 percent, including proven efficacy in killing MRSA* and C-diff*.

Saint Mary’s Hospital is in the process of building a state-of-the-art Joint Replacement Program and Chairman of Surgery and Director of Surgical Critical Care, Dr. Philip Corvo says “we’re working to make sure that it’s the safest, most efficient venture of its kind. Infection is the biggest concern after joint replacement. We need another way to attack bacteria before they can cause an infection, and these lights will help accomplish this.”

When the OR is not being used, the lights can be switched to an Indigo-only mode, providing a higher degree of safe disinfection.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), on any given day, around 1 in every 25 U.S. hospital patients contracts an infection in a healthcare setting. A CDC survey estimates that 75,000 hospital patients with hospital-acquired infections died during their hospitalization in 2011, and nearly one fourth (157,500 patients) developed infections from surgeries. Increased prevalence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is estimated to kill up to 99,000 Americans and infect another 1.7 million each year.

Dr. Corvo says, “Saint Mary’s is gaining a reputation of being a groundbreaking innovator – from having the first ambulatory surgery robotic surgery program in New England to our opioid sparing Enhanced Recovery After Surgery program to our use of 3D tumor printing to guide surgeries. The installation of these lights is the next step of providing exceptional care to every patient, every day. “

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