76 Tru-D shows promise for cleaning hospital rooms By AMANDA PEDERSEN <strong>Medical</strong> <strong>Device</strong> <strong>Daily</strong> Staff Writer A device made by Lumalier (Memphis, Tennessee) is showing promise in its ability to clean hospital rooms using ultraviolet germicidal energy to decontaminate air and surfaces. Lumalier reported that in a study presented at the 49th Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy in San Francisco, researchers used its mobile, automated UV device to decontaminate hospital rooms at the Cleveland Veterans Affairs (VA) <strong>Medical</strong> Center in Ohio and analyzed its ability to remove troublesome bacteria, including C. difficile spores. According to the company, the device, known as Tru-D, uses reflected UVC germicidal energy to decontaminate air and surfaces, including those in primary shadows. Chuck Dunn, president/CEO of Lumalier, told <strong>Medical</strong> <strong>Device</strong> <strong>Daily</strong> that the Tru-D was invented by Jeffrey Deal, MD, an ear, nose and throat surgeon that in his procedures – a lot of which involved young children – he was having infection problems. Deal sourced those problems of infection to the environmental surfaces in his operating room suite, which often weren’t being cleaned properly, Dunn said. He said the surfaces the Tru-D is designed to clean are considered non-critical surfaces. The company developed a method of measuring reflected dose throughout the space to ensure that shadows in a complex environment would be disinfected, Dunn said. By complex environment, he means all of the hoses, tubes, poles, keyboards found in the operating room environment. Dunn added that very often the machines that get touched most with hands are the ones that environmental services workers, or cleaners, are afraid to touch. Now, the device is beginning to attract attention from researchers. Curtis Donskey, MD, chair of the infection control committee at the Cleveland VA <strong>Medical</strong> Center, said that Tru-D is a “novel method for cleaning hospital rooms . . . easy to use . . . and more effective than standard disinfection for removing hardy bacteria.” According to Donskey, the Tru-D was able to decontaminate all surfaces in 40 hospital rooms, including hard-to-clean surfaces such as the undersides of tables.” Lumalier noted that 18% of sites under the edges of bedside tables were still contaminated with MRSA after routine hospital cleaning, versus 0% after Tru-D use. Research revealed that disinfection with Tru-D reduced the frequency of positive methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) cultures by 89%, the company said. “C. difficile spores are especially challenging for hospital staff,” Donskey said. On inoculated surfaces, application <strong>MEDICAL</strong> <strong>DEVICE</strong> <strong>INNOVATION</strong> 2010 of Tru-D using the spore setting consistently reduced recovery of C. difficile spores and MRSA by about two to three logs, the company noted. Similar VRE reduction was achieved in about half the time using a lower dose setting. “The UV device is computerized and can assess how much is needed for decontamination by measuring the reflected UV radiation from surfaces in the room,” Donskey said. “It’s inexpensive to operate and requires no cleaning supplies.” After viewing results, Donskey requested the purchase of several Tru-D units for the Cleveland VA <strong>Medical</strong> Center, Lumalier said. Dunn told MDD that for now, Lumalier is not making claims that the Tru-D reduces hospital-acquired infections, however that is a possibility in the future, if the company obtains the data to back up such claims. “At present, the studies and the research are simply in regard to our ability to clean. We can state that we reduce pathogens – that’s clear that we do – we cannot state that that reduction of pathogens may or will lead to a reduction of hospital-acquired infections because we don’t have that data yet,” Dunn said. However, such data might not be that far off for Lumalier. Dunn said Donskey’s study is about to enter its third phase during which he will attempt to identify whether or not the Tru-D reduces infections. “UVC radiation is an exciting new technology for disinfecting patient rooms and contaminated surfaces in healthcare,” said Luke Chen, assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Duke University <strong>Medical</strong> Center. “The Tru-D device demonstrated consistency and rapidity in killing microorganisms. There is potential to use this technology to rapidly clean and turn around patient rooms, clinic space or waiting rooms.” John Boyce, MD, chief of the Infectious Diseases Section at the Hospital of Saint Raphael and clinical professor of medicine at Yale University School of Medicine, said that the device is easy to employ and that it can reduce the number of positive bacterial cultures “substantially.” According to Dunn, there are currently three ways to clean a hospital room: • mop and bucket, spray and wipe, which Dunn says is not a very effective method; • vaporized hydrogen peroxide, a new technology requiring specially-trained operators and four to six hours to clean a room and the hydrogen peroxide cannot be let out of the room, making it an effective method, but not practical for use in the quick room turn environment of healthcare, Dunn said. • Tru-D, which Dunn says is “very promising” to be both effective and fast. Boyce authored a 2008 disinfection study of vaporized hydrogen peroxide. “The UV radiation device has the potential to be effective, faster, and less expensive to operate,” he said. The company noted that Deal worked closely with To subscribe, please call <strong>MEDICAL</strong> <strong>DEVICE</strong> DAILY Customer Service at (800) 888-3912; outside the U.S. and Canada, call (404) 262-5547. Copyright © 2010 AHC Media LLC. Reproduction is strictly prohibited.
<strong>MEDICAL</strong> <strong>DEVICE</strong> <strong>INNOVATION</strong> 2010 77 Lumalier to insure that Tru-D technology is readily available for broad deployment. Last year the company received the distribution rights for the device from Deal. (This story originally appeared in the Oct. 13, 2009 edition of <strong>Medical</strong> <strong>Device</strong> <strong>Daily</strong>.) To subscribe, please call <strong>MEDICAL</strong> <strong>DEVICE</strong> DAILY Customer Service at (800) 888-3912; outside the U.S. and Canada, call (404) 262-5547. Copyright © 2010 AHC Media LLC. Reproduction is strictly prohibited.
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