The light way to reduce HAIs

US and Canadian hospitals now have the opportunity to acquire Indigo-Clean — a light fixture that uses Continuous Environmental Disinfection technology to continuously kill harmful bacteria linked to hospital-acquired infections (HAIs).

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports around 1 in 25 hospital patients in the US have at least one infection contracted in the health care setting. The CDC additionally estimates that HAIs cause at least 1.7 million illnesses and 99,000 deaths in acute care hospitals and add $35–45 billion in excess healthcare costs each year, often adding tens of thousands of dollars to the cost of treating a single patient.

Indigo-Clean, developed and patented by the University of Strathclyde, Scotland, uses a narrow spectrum of visible indigo-coloured light at an output of 405 nm on the light spectrum. This high-intensity narrow spectrum (HINS) light is absorbed by molecules within bacteria, producing a chemical reaction that kills the bacteria from the inside as if common household bleach had been released within the bacterial cells. Because the light is visible, it is lethal to pathogens but is safe for use in the presence of patients and staff.

The Indigo-Clean technology inactivates a wide range of microorganisms that are known causes of HAIs, including MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), C.difficile and VRE (vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus). The light operates continuously and requires no operator; kills bacteria in the air and on all surfaces; and complies with all internationally recognised standards for patient safety.

The Strathclyde team is based within the Robertson Trust Laboratory for Electronic Sterilisation Technologies (ROLEST) and includes Dr Scott MacGregor, the lab’s founder/co-director and vice-principal of the university. Dr MacGregor said the team spent more than 13 years researching and developing the HINS-light technology.

The technology has now been in use at Glasgow Royal Infirmary since 2008, in which time it has also been the subject of more than 20 peer-reviewed academic publications and 30 conference presentations. Strathclyde gained a US patent on the technology last year and recently granted Wisconsin-based company Kenall Manufacturing the licensing rights for the North American healthcare market.

“Our partnership with Kenall in the United States is an exciting new chapter which will see this innovative technology become a commercially available product,” Dr MacGregor said. “We chose Kenall because of its extensive experience in providing lighting for the most challenging healthcare environments where infection prevention is a key consideration.”

Kenall’s director of clinical affairs, Dr Cliff Yahnke, said while current methods of disinfecting the healthcare environment are effective, the methods are episodic and results are short-lived as bacteria immediately repopulate the space. The ability of Indigo-Clean to automatically and continuously treat the air, as well as hard and soft surfaces, provides a significant boost to cleaning and disinfecting efforts.

“Breaking the chain of infection — from an infected patient, to the environment, to new patient — is vitally important, and the ability of this technology to be in use and effective at all times will make a huge difference,” Dr Yahnke said.

Image caption: Microbial contamination on a contact agar plate with a 405 nm light source in the background.

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