Valley Hospital is Zapping Germs with Bursts of Light

The Valley Hospital is the first hospital in New Jersey to use Xenexs portable room disinfection system, which has been proven in studies to get hospital rooms 20 times cleaner than traditional housekeeping methods.

The device pulses blue ultraviolet light throughout patient rooms, operating rooms, the emergency department and other areas of the hospital to quickly destroy viruses, bacteria and bacterial spores typically in about 5 minutes to 10 minutes per room. Valley uses the device after the room has been thoroughly cleaned by housekeeping staff.

Valley has five Xenex devices and recently began a 160-day trial of the technology, which has contributed to significant drops in infection rates in other hospitals in the U.S. Xenex systems have proven to be effective against a variety of the most dangerous superbugs, including Clostridium difficile endospores (C. diff), methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) and Acinetobacter.

Using the Xenex system is just one more step in our continuous efforts to advance patient safety, says Mitchell Rubinstein, MD, vice president of medical affairs at The Valley Hospital. If this system performs to our expectations it will prove to be a tremendous tool to further insure our patients safety.

Xenex develops pulsed xenon UV room disinfection systems for the advanced cleaning of the patient environment in healthcare facilities.