New technology to clean hospitals in a flash

(NECN/KXAS: Andres Gutierrez) - A new sterilizing robot is cleaning up hospitals in a flash, using UV light.

Every morning, Nurse Doug Davis spends at least 10 minutes scrubbing his fingers, nails, and arms.

It's a standard procedure for him and his colleagues, to make sure patients are not exposed to dangerous germs or possibly deadly infections.

"Patients, when they come to us, are at risk for any type of infection, that's one of our goals," said Katherine Rhodes, Infection Prevention Coordinator.

Rolling through the hospital hallways is a new member to the team.

Enlisted to combat at the frontlines on the war on germs and infections, his name is Xenex.

"It's able to get almost every square inch of the room to be decontaminated," Davis said.

When it comes to hospital decontamination, it's a game changer.

Making its rounds in the surgical unit, the machine blasts UV light in the room it's assigned to clean, killing germs instantly.

In the past, wiping down and cleaning a room could take at least an hour, but now it can be done in just 15 minutes.

"We manually do our best to wipe down all the flat surfaces of the room but of course with human error there is the possibility to miss a small portion of it," Davis said.

For the hospital, the cost of the machine pays for itself in the long-run.

"The typical cost of a MRSA patient infection to a hospital is about the same cost of the device," Rachael Sparks said.

"It helps us cut down on manpower as far as what we're able to do and everything," Davis said.

It's making a hospital chore easier with some innovative thinking.