Applications

Hospital Unit

Hospital Unit

During outbreaks or clusters, or just for routine refurbishment or cleaning, entire hospital units can be closed. Bioquell gives the hospital the facility to rapidly and safely decontaminate these units in their entirety, eliminating pathogens and allowing re-admission into a unit free from environmental risk.
 

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Our Solutions

Where units are closed due to outbreaks, hospitals require the facility to fully decontaminate the area before patients can be admitted. Bioquell’s Professional Services teams offer hospitals the ability to eliminate pathogens, in a way that manual cleaning cannot, from these areas overnight using our HPV technology. This service has been shown to be useful in suppressing outbreaks by Infection Control Guidelines and peer reviewed research. The unit decontamination service has also been used extensively during planned refurbishment programs.

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FAQs

How is the Bioquell Q-10 different to previous offerings?

Bioquell primarily offered a service in the past. The Bioquell Q-10 suite is the first product designed specifically so hospitals can purchase and operate the equipment. Bioquell has partnered with healthcare workers to produce a system incorporating rapid cycles, increased user efficiency and excellent value.

Can’t we achieve the same result by cleaning?

Cleaning is an essential part of infection control, which can be greatly improved upon by the Bioquell system. Taking C. difficile as an example, 25% of surfaces were found to be contaminated after bleach cleaning1. Bioquell hydrogen peroxide vapor technology effectively eliminates surface environmental contamination (e.g. MRSA, VRE, C. difficile, Acinetobacter) resulting in reduced HCAI risk for subsequent room occupants.

Will it block rooms?

Rooms are completed in approximately 2 hours*, the quickest, proven, room sterilization technology on the market. The Department of Health's SHP report stated that “83% of NHS workers indicated that the Bioquell process caused no delay to discharges or admissions.”

How does the use of this technology impact on hospital accreditation?

Use of Bioquell’s technology is a demonstration that the hospital is committed to providing the safest possible patient environment. Bioquell research, together with the data produced by our Quality Assurance Data system, can be used to demonstrate best practice.

How does it work with housekeeping?

Bioquell negates the need for terminal cleaning with bleach and sterilizes all available surfaces and equipment in hospital rooms. Issues related to staff exposure to cleaning agents are negated by the use of Bioquell’s system.

Are there other systems out there which do the same?

No other whole room bio-decontamination system has shown reductions in infection rates. This is unsurprising as published literature clearly demonstrates the effectiveness of Bioquell’s HPV technology1,2. Bioquell achieves a 6-log spore reduction in approximately 2 hours* – no other system can match this. Further, some other systems have been shown to present Health and Safety risks.

Does it have an effect on infection rates?
 

Yes. Published data shows that a 53% reduction in C. difficile was associated with a long term Bioquell deployment1, and VRE acquisition risk has been shown to be greatly reduced3. In one study C. difficile rates appear to strongly correlate with periods when Bioquell was used most4.

Isn’t it expensive?

Cost-benefit analysis performed after a Bioquell intervention showed that there were 5.8 fewer C. difficile cases in the months where Bioquell was deployed5. Using published costs6 for C. difficile the projected cost-benefit was over 300% of the investment value.

Will it get in the way of patient care?

The DoH SHP investigated the impact of the Bioquell deployment on patient care and found that “94% of patients were not inconvenienced” - in fact 74% of patients were “unaware that the disinfection was taking place.”

Isn’t a partial surface sterilization good enough?

Put simply, the presence of a pathogen in any quantity on a surface may represent a risk for transmission, which is reflected by proposed hygiene standards7. Further, using
technologies that achieve partial kill allows pathogens with resistance to the chosen method of sterilization to thrive.

Aren’t rates coming down?

Although there has been recent success nationally and internationally in reducing infection rates, most experts would agree that considerably more can be done to reduce MRSA, C. difficile and other infections. Improvements in hand hygiene have undoubtedly helped to reduce infection rates, but experts now consider a “bundled” approach, including environmental interventions, to be the best strategy in reducing nosocomial infection, perhaps even to zero!

Can Bioquell’s technology sterilize soft fabrics or are you restricted to hard surfaces?

Due to the vaporous nature of the system, the technology is able to achieve some penetration into fabrics and soft furnishings.

Will the system damage my electronics?

Bioquell’s technology has been extensively tested against materials typically found in hospitals, and has demonstrated excellent materials compatibility characteristics. As well as 10 years’ use in the pharmaceutical industry, Bioquell has now been used for over five years in hospitals.

References:

1/ Boyce et al. Impact of hydrogen peroxide vapor room decontamination on Clostridium difficile environmental contamination and transmission in a healthcare setting. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol 2008; 29:723-729.
2/ French et al. Tackling contamination of the hospital environment by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA): a comparison between conventional terminal cleaning and hydrogen peroxide vapour decontamination. J Hosp Infect 2004; 57:31-37.
3/ Passaretti et al. Adherence to Hydrogen Peroxide Vapor (HPV) decontamination reduces VRE acquisition in high-risk units. 48th Annual Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC) and the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA). Washington DC, USA, 2008. Abstract K4124b.
4/ Otter et al. Feasibility of routinely using hydrogen peroxide vapor to decontaminate rooms in a busy United States hospital. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol 2009; 30: 574-577.
5/ Cooper T and O’Leary M. Clinical impact and cost-benefit of routine, preventative HPV bio decontamination in a UK hospital. Infection Prevention Society, 2009.
6/ Wilcox et al. Financial burden of hospital-acquired Clostridium difficile infection. J Hosp Infect. 1996; 34:23-30.
7/ Dancer SJ. How do we assess hospital cleaning? A proposal for microbiological standards for surface hygiene in hospitals. J Hosp Infect 2004; 56: 10-15.

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