We’ve noticed that in the hospital setting, where UV disinfection devices / UVC disinfection equipment are commonly used, the principles that make UV light technology 100% effective aren’t fully understood or respected. Furthermore, we discovered numerous inefficiencies that added to the workload of the staff.
The problems we have observed are both systemic and refer to optimizations. Here’s a brief description:
Systemic Problems
- The staff who perform terminal disinfection routines do not fully understand the efficient operating rules for various UVC disinfection devices or UV robots, including the relationship between power and usage time. They only act on directly irradiated surfaces and do not take into account the reflection coefficient for shaded surfaces.
- There is no traceability of disinfection routines.
- User safety and the safety of those who may accidentally come into contact with the devices during operation are not guaranteed.
Optimizations
- The operating time of the devices is recorded in a register, which creates inefficiencies and raising concerns about the accuracy of the completed data (all cleaning cycles must be added up to a total of 9,000-12,000 hours depending on the lifespan of the installed UVC sources).
- The operator selects an operating time, usually 15 minutes per room, which has no scientific or efficiency basis.
Aware of all these aspects and with the experience of in-house production and development of disinfection, sterilization, air and surface purification, and filtration products (which we produce in Romania), we have adapted the innovative system that underlies our entire product line to bring any UVC disinfection equipment owned by hospitals into the 21st century.
Now it is no longer necessary to allocate considerable sums for the purchase of modern and highly technological devices to achieve the disinfection objectives set by the healthcare facility.
Our system consists of:
- The hardware component, an IoT that controls the device remotely, is outfitted with sensors that prevent operation in the presence of people and cause interruptions if it detects the presence of humans while in use.
- The management platform that enables the hospital administrator to do the following:
- Enroll and calibrate each UVC device based on the irradiance of the UVC sources and their number
- Enroll unique password-protected accounts for each person responsible for disinfection
- Enroll the size of the hospital rooms; the system automatically generates a unique QR code that will be attached to each room. When the user scans the code, depending on the irradiance of the device used, the system automatically calculates the time required to apply the dose of UVC set by the hospital (90%, 99%, 99.99% discount, etc.)
- Create cleaning routines, recurring or not, for any of the enrollees. When entering the shift and logging on to the mobile device, the cleaning manager will be presented with a list of the spaces they need to disinfect, the order, the time, etc. in which he must fulfill them
- Consult in a dashboard the performance of the employees responsible for cleaning but also any event recorded in the database (eg: when a disinfection was started, if the process of accidental intrusion of a person into space was interrupted, when the process was resumed, when the process has been completed, if any defects have occurred, etc.)
- Track the lifetime of the sources on each device enrolled in the system. The system sends alerts to each administrator login when the source replacement time is approaching
- The mobile application allows users to:
- Connect with their individual user account
- View the list of tasks they need to perform during their shifts
- Control Wolf-e Robotics smart devices remotely and safely
- Set the exposure time for the device if they are disinfecting an unenrolled space, which can be identified by scanning a unique QR code
- Receive notifications when a task has been completed, thereby increasing the productivity of the staff
- Receive notifications when a disinfection cycle has been interrupted due to a person entering the space where the device was operating
- Receive alerts when the lifespan of the UV-C sources is nearing its end.
We spoke with doctors who work in public hospitals in Romania, and they informed us that this platform will only be used by staff members who have at least a basic understanding of technology. These medical professionals had doubts about the ability of the current cleaning and disinfection staff to attain the level of expertise required by the technology. We informed them that all they needed to use this platform are a smartphone and an application, which, once installed, would provide detailed instructions. If you make an effort to understand and learn, there is nothing difficult about understanding a process. Romanians have always been and remain highly adaptable, but change is necessary and has consistently been shown to improve our lives throughout history.
We live in the technological era, and we believe that we must all make an effort to progress along this path – to learn, to want to make things better, better than yesterday! We believe that comparing and starting from the premise that those who have to do the disinfection in hospitals and follow a certain protocol are below the level that they should be, and then letting things go as they are, is a bad idea. As individuals, as a society, and as Romania as a whole.
We, Wolf-e Robotics, are democratizing disinfection and air & surface purification! With the help of technology!
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We are Wolf-e Robotics, and every day we work to support our mission of disinfecting the air and surfaces in the places where we work, learn, and spend our time. Through disinfection with intelligent UVC light equipment and mobile robots, we provide the most efficient and environmentally friendly method of inactivating microorganisms on surfaces and in the air. With applicability in the medical, commercial, transportation, education, and corporate sectors.
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