The COVID-19 pandemic has created many unique challenges for EMS agencies across the world including CLES here in Cooper Landing. In order to ensure the safety of all patients transported in ambulances, it is essential that proper decontamination procedures are followed after each patient transport. The typical decontamination process includes wiping down all equipment including the stretcher with appropriate disinfectant solutions. However, with COVID-19 patients, there is a significant risk of aerosolized contamination throughout the EMS unit that has elevated the need for extensive decontamination.
In recent months, NASA joined forces with Emergency Products + Research (EP+R) to research and develop an innovative product that can provide the appropriate decontamination of both pre-hospital equipment including ambulances as well as hospital equipment and hospital rooms.
NASA engineers who specialized in aerosol physics worked to revamp an existing product sold by the company for use in fighting the COVID-19 virus. EP+R’s portable AMBUStat device uses a mist of water, peracetic acid and hydrogen peroxide solution to decontaminate spaces like ambulances and police cars in minutes. NASA engineers said the technology was originally developed to sterilize robots that were sent to Mars to ensure “there’s not a microbe on the robot because we don’t want to accidentally put a microbe on Mars because we want to make sure anything we discover on Mars is something that was already there.”
In the past, traditional methods of decontamination only disinfect equipment and solid surfaces in the ambulance or about 50% of the total working area. With the AMBUStat fogger, 100% of all equipment and surfaces are disinfected. According to Clay Adam, Deputy Chief, EMS with CLES, “AMBUStat is a revolutionary device that reduces our downtime after each call from hours to minutes. The entire decontamination process can now be completed in under 30 minutes, keeping our ambulances available for emergency calls as they arise.”
CLES was able to acquire this technology through grant monies available through the CARES Act Relief Fund.
