U-M surgeon helps modernize car safety testing

A research team led by Keith Kaye, M.D., M.P.H., director of clinical research in the U-M Division of Infectious Diseases, will put germ-zapping robots to the test at Detroit hospitals.

The $1.5 million effort is supported by the National Institutes of Health’s Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and is the first to study the clinical impact of no-touch room disinfection.

Kaye will work with colleagues at Wayne State University and the Detroit Medical Center to conduct the study in two hospitals covering 16 total hospital units at the DMC.

At the end of two years, researchers will report on rates of hospital-acquired infections in units where high intensity ultraviolet light delivered by Xenex Germ-Zapping Robots was added to cleaning routines.

They’ll measure if cleaning plus pulsed xenon UV light reduced the number of infections from drug-resistant organisms that cause:

• Clostridium difficile

• Vancomycinresistant enterococci (VRE)

• Klebsiella pneumonia

• Escherichiae coli producing extended-spectrum betalactamases (ESBLs)

• methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)

• Acinetobacter baumannii.

The unique design of the study, which is double-blinded and sham-controlled, makes it the first to examine the clinical impact of adding PX-UV to hospital cleaning routines.

Website: https://www.xenex.com/