| Sumario: | • This study evaluated chemical disinfection efficacy in the operating room versus focused multivector ultraviolet (FMUV) disinfection. • Compliance in the control (chemical) phase was 92% and in the intervention (FMUV) phase was 99%. • The chemical disinfection colony-forming unit (CFU) reduction on operating room equipment was 38%, and for FMUV it was 96.5%. • After disinfection, the intervention (FMUV) CFU levels were 19.5 times better than the control (chemical) CFU levels. • The 90-second treatment cycle for the intervention (FMUV) was highly effective. This non-randomized comparative observational study evaluated the performance of a standard manual-chemical disinfection process with an automated process employing focused multivector ultraviolet (FMUV) light technology during operating room (OR) terminal cleaning. An Association of periOperative Registered Nurses terminal cleaning protocol was modified to incorporate the use of automated FMUV technology that allows workers to occupy the room during operation. This modified protocol was compared with a standard manual-chemical cleaning and disinfection protocol. Equipment surfaces were pre-sampled before and after terminal cleaning. A total of 165 objects were sampled in each process using a 5-point multisided sampling method. The parallel process employing FMUV reduced the active microbial burden by 96.5% from baseline (P <.0001), which was over 2.5 times better than the standard process. The standard terminal manual-chemical disinfection process reduced the active microbial burden on sampled objects by 38.4% from baseline (P <.0001). The data demonstrates that the performance of standard manual-chemical disinfection alone is variable in a live clinical setting even under the most ideal conditions. By comparison, automated FMUV treatment incorporated in a parallel process consistently produced thorough and significant reductions of microbial contamination levels on all visibly clean patient care equipment.
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