The importance of infection control procedures in hospital radiology departments has become increasingly apparent in recent months as the impact of COVID-19 has spread across the world. Existing disinfectant procedures that rely on the manual application of chemical-based disinfectants are time consuming, resource intensive and prone to high degrees of human error. Alternative non-touch disinfection methods, such as Ultraviolet Germicidal Irradiation (UVGI), have the potential to overcome many of the limitations of existing approaches while significantly improving workflow and equipment utilization. The aim of this research was to investigate the germicidal effectiveness and the practical feasibility of using a robotic UVGI device for disinfecting surfaces in a radiology setting. We present the design of a robotic UVGI platform that can be deployed alongside human workers and can operate autonomously within cramped rooms, thereby addressing two important requirements necessary for integrating the technology within radiology settings. In one hospital, we conducted experiments in a CT and X-ray room. In a second hospital, we investigated the germicidal performance of the robot when deployed to disinfect a CT room in <15 minutes, a period which is estimated to be 2–4 times faster than current practice for disinfecting rooms after infectious (or potentially infectious) patients. Findings from both test sites show that UVGI successfully inactivated all of measurable microbial load on 22 out of 24 surfaces. On the remaining two surfaces, UVGI reduced the microbial load by 84 and 95%, respectively. The study also exposes some of the challenges of manually disinfecting radiology suites, revealing high concentrations of microbial load in hard-to-reach places. Our findings provide compelling evidence that UVGI can effectively inactivate microbes on commonly touched surfaces in radiology suites, even if they were only exposed to relatively short bursts of irradiation. Despite the short irradiation period, we demonstrated the ability to inactivate microbes with more complex cell structures and requiring higher UV inactivation energies than SARS-CoV-2, thus indicating high likelihood of effectiveness against coronavirus.

Ultraviolet germicidal irradiation (UVGI) technologies have emerged as a promising alternative to biocides as a means of surface disinfection in hospitals and other healthcare settings. This paper reviews the methods used by researchers and clinicians in deploying and evaluating the efficacy of UVGI technology. The type of UVGI technology used, the clinical setting where the device was deployed, and the methods of environmental testing that the researchers followed are investigated. The findings suggest that clinical UVGI deployments have been growing steadily since 2010 and have increased dramatically since the start of the COVID‐19 pandemic. Hardware platforms and operating procedures vary considerably between studies. Most studies measure efficacy of the technology based on the objective measurement of bacterial bioburden reduction; however, studies conducted over longer durations have examined the impact of UVGI on the reduction of healthcare associated infections (HCAIs). Future trends include increased automation and the use of UVGI technologies that are safer for use around people. Although existing evidence seems to support the efficacy of UVGI as a tool capable of reducing HCAIs, more research is needed to measure the magnitude of these effects and to establish recommended best practices.