New invention could save tens of thousands of lives a year

Around five percent of hospital patients will get hospital-acquired infections during the course of their stay, including MRSA or E. coli - and that’s despite the best efforts of hospital staff to clean, scrub and sterilize every part of the room after a patient’s stay. Now a new device may put an end to that.

“They have some very good cleaning solutions, but unfortunately these solutions don’t take out all of the bacteria,” says co-inventor of AsepticSure Dr. Michael Shannon. “Even if you leave less than one per cent of the bacteria, within eight hours they have all grown back.”

The AsepticSure is placed in an empty hospital room with the doors closed, and it’s vapour containing a mix of ozone and low-dose peroxide is turned on.

In a recent test run in Canada it was used on a a contaminated ward and seven months later not a single patient has been infected by MRSA, according to the company behind it.

The major barrier to entry may be the cost – which runs about $129,000. But Shannon says the cost of the machine is covered by the avoidance of eight cases. Cleaner rooms also mean shorter stays in hospitals and lower rates of readmission, which further saves the system money. This machine can also clean a room in a matter of hours as opposed to a matter of days.