In a recent Xenex blog, Dr. Sarah Simmons discusses her mission to help improve the way surface disinfection technologies are validated so that testing standards for everyone can be the same.
Editor's Note: This blog originally appeared on Xenex’s website.
What is your role at Xenex?
As the Science Director, I oversee all Xenex research and help hospitals with their strategic use of Xenex Robots.
I’m an epidemiologist and biostatistician, so a lot of my day is about helping our customer hospitals analyze their own complex data sets. We help them quantify the positive impacts Xenex disinfection is having on their Hospital Acquired Infection (HAI) rates, as well as on their bottom lines. I also hold a certification in Infection Control (CIC), and consult with infection prevention teams at hospitals that are considering our disinfection program, to help them project the impacts they could see.
What kind of labs does Xenex use to confirm the disinfection effectiveness of their Robots?
We use several types of labs. While we have our own research lab, our 3rd party microbiology labs also confirm efficacy in a lab setting. We work with Texas Biomedical Research Institute on Ebola and Anthrax last year, so that was really exciting, since we are the only disinfection company to test against those actual pathogens in a Biosafety Level 4 lab. I should add, those tests came out beautifully and showed that pulsed xenon UV completely kills Anthrax spores in 15 minutes and Ebola in 1 minute!
We’ve also worked with governmental labs and international labs confirming Xenex efficacy against many highly resistant pathogens and rarer ones like MERS-CoV, which is a problem in the Middle East.
You asked about effectiveness and actually, “efficacy” refers to a lab setting while “effectiveness” is how well you perform in the clinical (or real-world) setting. Hospitals have demonstrated Xenex effectiveness in 8 peer reviewed studies on HAI rate reductions.