Lafayette General Medical Center unveils Xenex LightStrike Germ-Zapping Robots

Lafayette General Medical Center (LGMC) is the first hospital in Acadiana to use Xenex LightStrike Germ-Zapping Robots™ to enhance environmental cleanliness by disinfecting and destroying hard-to-kill germs, bacteria and superbugs in hard-to-clean places. LGMCjoins innovative hospitals such as the Mayo Clinic, MD Anderson and Stanford, which were early adopters of the new technology.

“As a healthcare leader in Acadiana, the Xenex system furthers our commitment to quality and patient safety,” said Patrick Gandy, CEO of LGMC. “The germ-zapping robots have been an invaluable supplement to our outstanding environmental services team. We understand that as superbugs have evolved, it is necessary for our methods of disinfecting to evolve as well.”

The portable disinfection system is effective against even the most dangerous pathogens, including Clostridium difficile (C. diff), norovirus, influenza, Ebola and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, better known as MRSA. The five Xenex robots were named by employees. Walt, Daisy, Cindy, Randy and R2Clean2, use pulsed xenon ultraviolet (UV) light to quickly destroy bacteria, viruses, fungi and bacterial spores.

“We are excited to partner with Lafayette General Medical Center. Hospitals using our technology for room disinfection have reported lower infection rates, which enhances patient safety,” said Morris Miller, CEO of Xenex. Miller has a personal connection to Lafayette as an investor and board member for Golfballs.com.

The portable Xenex system can disinfect a typical patient room or operating room in 10-15 minutes without warm-up or cool-down times. At LGMC, when a patient is discharged or transferred from a room, an environmental services (EVS) employee will manually disinfect the room with mops, rags, disinfectant, etc. After the manual cleaning takes place an EVSmanager will roll the robot into the patient room. The robot is then left alone in the room to perform three 5-minute light cycles. They also perform two 10-minute cycles in each operating room every night.

These Wi-Fi- and cellular-enabled machines are already killing bugs in more than 400 hospitals across North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa.

“In infection prevention, our goal is to provide a clean, safe environment for our patients, their families and our employees,” said Gandy. “This is a revolutionary system that provides a second layer of protection after a room is cleaned and sanitized. We are excited to introduce this technology to Lafayette and our patients.