Page 14 - Bexar County Medical Society Purchasing Directory

MEDICAL
TECHNOLOGY

continued from page 13

care costs, not to mention lost
wages, pain and suffering.
Marketing an expensive innova-
tive technology, regardless of
journal results, takes innovative
approaches. Morris Miller was
precisely the right partner. His
record of accomplishment for
identifying, using, and fostering
adoption of new technologies
goes back to when he first digi-
tized Texas legal case law to make
it available on Cd-ROM before
anyone else saw the promise. The
development of Rackspace from
a basic Internet access and web
hosting company to become an
essential aspect of the cloud host-
ing industry is also a story in
Miller’s wake. but marketing such
a radical change in HAI-control
to an industry as stolid as healthcare meant proving to hospitals that assist with keeping patients safe, and in turn reducing hospital ac-
return-on-investment would be guaranteed. quired infections and conditions.
So XENEX partnered with hospitals instead of just selling, and "In the first year of having the robots, we noticed a 34 percent
provided the same “extreme stewardship” to its clients that Rack- decrease in hospital acquired infections. The robots are a great in-
space fostered. Initial results from many of those first hospitals were vestment," he said to The Norman Transcript, "I would like to see
encouraging: Cooley-dickinson Hospital (MA) reported an 86 per- the hospital consider purchasing additional robots to further assist
cent drop in rates of C.diff infections; and Cone Health, whose in sanitizing and disinfecting areas of the hospital."
MRSA infections plummeted in the first six months of using brawner said their efficiency and speed caught his eye. "It only
XENEX, saved over $2 million. takes about 10 minutes to completely disinfect a hospital patient
The results have continued to make headlines. “When a New room," he said. "It's very impressive."
Orleans hospital needed 24 robots, we said let us put them in at no While altruistic, the partnerships also have a strategic effect, says
cost to you, and unless your infections drop below a benchmark, Miller. “It’s a new technology, and we’re trying to get around the
there won’t be a bill, let’s say if they don’t go down 15 percent. So price elasticity curve by working with hospitals, with their environ-
three months later, they announced a nearly 50-percent drop!” mental services, saying, ‘let us help you save the money first, then
Just a year ago, XENEX teamed with Norman Regional Health you can pay us.’ Otherwise, it takes too long for the price to fall to
System to stem an expected flu epidemic at Norman Oklahoma have the technology as widely used as we want.”
Public Schools. Norman Regional’s Environmental Services team And the need for these robots appears to be increasing. “For
disinfected five schools using Germ-Zapping Robots from every infection that doesn’t occur, that’s one less use of antibiotics,
XENEX. The results were so impressive, XENEX has continued and one less opportunity for antibiotic-resistant pathogens to de-
to partner with Norman Regional Health to support community velop. Thanks to the XENEX lightStrike technology, we can stop
events and raise awareness of disease transmission. that cycle in its tracks,” Miller concluded.
Clyde brawner, director of Environmental Services at Norman
Regional Health System, said Norman Regional purchased four David A. Schulz is a member of the BCMS Publications Committee.
XENEX Germ-Zapping Robots in 2016 and two more in 2017, to

14 San Antonio Medicine • April 2019