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Hygienic devices: Our task force fighting hospital germs
Hygienic devices: Our task force fighting hospital germs
Going to hospital for treatment of a serious illness only then to "catch" another serious infection while there, is a nightmare for patients.
Yet, unfortunately, it's not uncommon.
A few years ago, Martin Seifert's cousin – a man in his 30s at the time – experienced the problem first-hand. When suffering from a severe case of pneumonia, he was put on a ventilator in the hospital. In the process, he contracted a pulmonary pathogen – and was lucky to survive this additional infection, recounts Seifert, our Senior Key Expert for Surface Technology, in a grave tone: "What happened to my cousin back then is definitely one reason why the issue of hygiene is so close to my heart."
What are nosocomial infections?
One in ten patients dies from a contracted HAI
On average, one in ten patients affected by HAIs dies from the infection. And where multi-resistant pathogens are involved in the infection, the death rate is even higher1. Nosocomial infections are also a financial burden on the healthcare system: because prolonged hospital stays cost money. What's more, the COVID-19 pandemic has shown just how key the issue of hygiene is in healthcare facilities.
"Our clinical partners do everything in their power to provide patients with a safe environment, and invest a lot of time and money in hygiene and infection prevention," Seifert emphasizes.
Hygiene can prevent HAIs
The WHO report also states that infections in the healthcare sector could be reduced by some 70 percent if efficient IPC programs were in place, meaning if recommended hygiene regulations were consistently and rigorously implemented.
What is IPC?
Staff shortages and time pressure rule clinical reality
Seifert and his colleagues surveyed international clinical staff – in total over 70 radiation therapists, surgical technical assistants, laboratory technicians, hygiene officers and decision-makers from hospital management – to find out more about their hygiene challenges. And they learned a lot about a reality defined by staff shortages, economic constraints and time pressures.
The respondents described, for example, how cleaning the bores of MRI and CT scanners is such a challenge. The area is difficult to access, and the lengthy cleaning process causes unwanted downtime for such highly utilized equipment. Overall, the responses were dominated by the desire for robust surfaces, quick and easy cleaning, and clearly defined and signposted disinfection procedures, says Seifert.
While as a medtech manufacturer there is no way we can solve hygiene challenges on our own, we can support clinical staff in the best possible way with technological ideas and hygienic product solutions.
Martin Seifert
Senior Key Expert Surface Technology
Siemens Healthineers
So, where's the best place to start to ensure particularly hygienic medical devices? "The topic of hygiene is very complex and multi-layered," explains Seifert: "Each individual device has a different function and is integrated into a different clinical process. Not every surface material and every surface disinfection technology is suitable for every device and every process. There are many statutory standards and regulations that we have to observe. And most of the time we have to combine multiple measures to achieve good end results."
Precisely because the topic is so complex, a whole team of experts are needed to contribute their specialized knowledge – their "super skills", so to speak.
Become part of the team!
Watch this video, and get to know our task force for hygienic product solutions:
The work of the Hygiene Initiative focuses on three core areas:
1. Hygienic Product Design
A hygienic product needs a specialized design. Under the leadership of Tim Richter, who heads the Industrial Design Team at Siemens Healthineers, the initiative has worked in collaboration with product designers and colleagues from research and development to develop around 60 principles for hygienic design which, during the design process, are then integrated into the respective products.
UX design: Focus on users
The goal is to design devices to make their cleaning process as easy and efficient as possible for clinical staff with the goal of impeding germ transmission and preventing the formation of biofilms.
What is a biofilm?
The three basic principles for Hygienic Product Design are:
Simplify. Smoothen. Automate.
2. Surface Technology
- Siemens Healthineers protects its innovative ideas in all technical areas by means of various types of intellectual property. While a design patent protects the aesthetic aspects of a device, a utility patent also protects its technical function. As an inventor Seifert has contributed already to 10 patent families in different technical fields. At Siemens Healthineers, a team of patent attorneys from the Intellectual Property Department works closely with our inventors to identify valuable ideas and strategically protect them against plagiarists. Siemens Healthineers holds some 24,000 intellectual property rights, of which about 15,000 are granted patents.
"In our selection testing, we examine, for example, whether the surfaces can be processed using the hygiene procedures and techniques commonly used in the clinical environment, and whether they're resistant to the cleaning agents and disinfectants commonly used in clinical applications. And we test them for biocompatibility," explains Seifert.
What is biocompatibility?
3. Processing
The third main area of focus that the team is concentrating on is the validated processing, in other words the cleaning and disinfection of relevant medical device surfaces. This set of topics includes the sub-aspects of hygiene technology, hygienic workflows and hygiene testing. In the field of hygiene technology, Seifert is constantly on the lookout for new or existing technologies that can be adapted to the medical sector. In doing so, he researches numerous different approaches, for example to make the surfaces of medical devices even more robust, to simplify and automate the hygienic processing of surfaces, or to make contamination easier to recognize.
With their hygiene analyses, for instance, the team ensures that our devices meet hygiene standards for cleaning and disinfection. Seifert works closely in this area with Daniel Mach, an expert in statutory standards, hygiene directives and guidelines, and materials testing.
Here is an example of a test scenario:
Looking to the future
No "one size fits all"
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- The presented information is based on research results that are not commercially available.
Future realization and availability cannot be guaranteed. The products/features mentioned herein are not commercially available in all countries. Their future availability cannot be guaranteed.