Disinfecting handheld electronic devices with UV-C in a healthcare setting

Suzan Cremers-Pijpers; Carsten van Rossum; Mirjam Dautzenberg; Heiman Wertheim; Alma Tostmann; Joost Hopman

doi:10.1016/j.infpip.2021.100133

Disinfecting handheld electronic devices with UV-C in a healthcare setting

Infect Prev Pract. 2021 Feb 27;3(2):100133. doi: 10.1016/j.infpip.2021.100133. eCollection 2021 Jun.

Authors

Suzan Cremers-Pijpers¹, Carsten van Rossum¹, Mirjam Dautzenberg², Heiman Wertheim¹, Alma Tostmann¹, Joost Hopman¹

Affiliations

¹ Hygiene and Infection Control, Department of Medical Microbiology, Radboudumc Center for Infectious Diseases, Radboud University Medical Centre, Nijmegen, the Netherlands.
² Department of Medical Microbiology, Radboudumc, the Netherlands.

Abstract

Handheld Electronic Devices (HEDs) play a central role in the hospital environment. However, they can be a vehicle for transmitting (pathogenic) microorganisms. We studied whether disinfection with UV-C light is successful in disinfecting three different HEDs in a clinical setting. Disinfection with UV-C light was performed with the UV-Smart® D25. We took a total of 800 samples on two departments and counted colony forming units. More than half of the baseline measurements were moderately (>10CFU) or highly (>50 CFU) contaminated. Post-disinfection the CFU was 0 in 87% of measurements. We conclude that the UV-Smart® D25 can be used to disinfect non-critical HEDs in clinical healthcare.

Keywords: Bacterial contamination; Handheld electronic devices; UV-C disinfection.