Patent Grant
12097299
The present invention generally relates to the sanitization of gloves or other hand coverings.
In jobs that include high manual interaction with the public including but not limited to cashiers, service personnel at post offices, receptionists, retail sales, food or beverage servers, and so forth, the current state-of-the-art to protect against pathogen transmission is to cover hands with disposable gloves. Gloves are not changed between customers or cleaned in any way. Changing gloves between customers is generally impractical and time consuming.
Not only are service personnel unlikely to change gloves between customers, but in even slightly humid or hot locales, changing gloves often is inconvenient, cumbersome, and can be difficult as the hands become sweaty and the gloves become difficult to put on due to the increased friction caused by damp, sweaty, and in some cases swollen hands. It also may be cost prohibitive to change gloves between customers and gloves are often in short supply or suffer from distribution issues. This results in an environment that allows for the spread of pathogens between customers as gloves become contaminated after interacting with, and exchanging objects with, customers.
Gloves as currently used in this and other environments, where the server personnel do not change gloves between customers, are less effective or do not aid in decreasing the spread of pathogens due to the high degree of cross contamination that occurs between customers, from objects and items passed between service personnel and a customer, and the service personnel touching surfaces while serving the customer.
Additionally, in jobs that require a high level of cleanliness including but not limited to jobs in biological laboratories, healthcare settings, and food processing facilities, workers are supposed to change and dispose of gloves after handling potentially contaminated items. Workers often only remove and dispose of gloves after their shift or before a break. Workers touch various objects during their shift, with potentially contaminated gloves. Surfaces that have been touched by contaminated gloves can therefore become a reservoir for pathogens. If a worker touches the contaminated surface, they can contaminate more surfaces and potentially allow pathogens to contaminate other objects that leave a facility. Pathogens in such facilities can be especially dangerous because in such facilities pathogens are often exposed to substances designed to kill them, meaning that the pathogens that survive are resistant to different things used against them such as antibiotics, cleaning chemicals, vaccines, etc. Even more problematically, workers in such facilities also have been proven to not change and dispose of gloves as often as health regulations require.
Prior art sterilizing machines use ultra-violet light to sterilize various things. Limiting ultraviolet exposure to the body may be important when considering a device that is designed to be used after every interaction with a customer, which may total to be in the hundreds if not thousands for a single service person in just a single shift. If not properly protected, the hands may quickly be exposed to a dangerous dose of ultraviolet light. The prior art fails to account for the many potential safety issues that come with exposing gloved hands to ultraviolet light.
Also, a device to treat the surface of gloves is most effective when it is used consistently and often. Many workers fail to comply with simple health protocols such as washing hands after using the restroom, so it is important to use various methods to ensure that workers comply with any new biosecurity protocols.
Since contamination of the surface of gloves is highly variable as it is not limited to just biological contamination but also physical or chemical contamination, often it is not only important to ensure that the gloves are treated after different interactions, but also to ensure that after some types of contaminations the gloves are changed.
The present invention relates to a system that allows hand coverings such as gloves or other types of hand coverings to be reused quickly while eliminating, deactivating, or disabling all or a significant amount of surface pathogens, thereby decreasing transmission of pathogens by touch. The system may result in lower costs and is often more practical than changing gloves after every customer which is time consuming, unwieldy and may not be possible due to limited resources. Use of embodiments of the present invention is often typically easier and faster than merely changing gloves, as the touched surfaces of a pair of hand coverings can be sanitized in seconds between customers.
The specialized hand coverings used in some embodiments allow for safe sterilization of the coverings with minimal, if any, exposure of skin or eyes to the ultraviolet light from the disinfecting apparatus, which in some cases may be a prior art sterilizing machine with a UV light source, or an embodiment of one of the present inventions herein. To be able to maintain safe operation of an ultraviolet treatment of gloved hands, the system can verify certain safety factors before emitting ultraviolet light. A distinguishing visual feature may be used in conjunction with optical sensors on the sterilization machine to safely activate the germicidal light source. Alternatively, optimal placement of the hand coverings within the device, so as to prevent over insertion of the covered hand beyond a point, can be indicated by a mark on the sleeve of the hand covering and/or detected by a sensor and/or limited by a mechanical barrier. The hand coverings also ensure that the highest contact surfaces of the covering may be disinfected between each customer.
Additionally, the hand coverings and/or the machine and/or a device attached to a service person may indicate to customers that the hand coverings have been cleaned recently by auditory, visual, tactile, and/or other signals, providing the customer and service personnel with reassurance and confidence thus enhancing bio-security and perhaps equally important to the customer, the feeling of security. The indicating device may have an indicator in the form of a visual, audible, tactile, and/or other signal indicating that the service person's gloves have been exposed to the device.
In one embodiment, the indicating device may indicate that treatment had occurred within the time set or may also be set to be triggered by an input from a point-of-sale system, or a “next served” number counting system, or a proximity sensor sensing the absence of a customer at a counter or place of service, or the triggering of a sensor by the presence of new customer. All of which may be implemented individually or collectively to trigger a visual, audible, tactile, and/or other signal indicating that the gloved hands need to be reinserted into the device to re-expose the surfaces to the disinfecting light. Once reinserted and treated for the set time given the light source and type, the timer (which may be integrated into the controller), light indicator, other visual, tactile, audible, and/or other signals will be reset for another interval of time and/or service of the next customer in the queue.
The present invention is described with reference to the attached figures. The figures are not drawn to scale. Several aspects of embodiments of the invention are described below. It should be understood that numerous specific details, relationships, and methods are set forth to provide an understanding of the invention. One skilled in the relevant art, however, will readily recognize that the invention can be practiced without one or more of the specific details or with other methods.
In
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The alternate baffle design uses a placement of reflective and nonreflective surfaces on the interior portions of the baffles so as to only allow a minimal amount of light to exit the front of the machine. Where the back of the machine is made to be less or non-reflective to UV light combined with an angled front baffle that is reflective, the machine can contain a sufficient amount of light within itself to maintain safe operation. This may often be beneficial since the baffle would not have to make contact with the surface of the gloves which may decrease the wear of the baffling element and decrease a potential source of contamination.
Continuing with
In
The controller 18 has wiring to communicate with, or to receive input from, the photoelectric sensors 12L and 12R in order to determine the optimal hand depth, typically activating the germicidal light source when it is safe to do so. The controller 18 may be mounted inside or outside of the prism body assembly 14. When the controller 18 is mounted inside the assembly 14, a cover may be used to protect the circuits from ultraviolet radiation. While
The hand coverings may have a high contrast, machine readable pattern, distinct from the hand covering, that is placed in such a way to correspond to the optimal hand insertion depth for the sterilization machine for a specific size of hand covering. One embodiment of the sensor mechanism/circuit would sense the optical position of the high contrast pattern on the hand coverings before allowing the light, flash, led, laser, or light emitter to activate.
In
In some embodiments, the bafflings will rotate or be exposed to the germicidal light without hand coverings inserted after each treatment to decrease cross contamination further. When using rotating baffling elements, the element may rotate to expose a different baffling surface after each treatment to allow for the previously used surface to be disinfected before being used again. This can be exemplified by the rotating brushes depicted in
A second embodiment of a sterilizing machine is shown in
Alternatively, the sterilization machine may be activated by an external sensor or switch including but not limited to a foot pedal. The sensor or switch is electrically connected to the controller 28. The enclosure 24 houses a low-pressure ultraviolet lamp 32 (not shown) in such a way to contain all, or effectively all, of the light emitted by the lamp. The lamp is electrically connected to the controller 28. The controller 28 is fixed to the enclosure 24. The controller may also have a cover 28C, the removal of which allows access to the controller's internal parts. The controller 28 can be implemented with indicating lights 281 as a visible indication to customers of when gloves are cleaned. The enclosure 24 has openings for hands to be inserted that will be covered by baffling material 30 (not shown). In some embodiments, multiple UV light sources such as two, three, four, or a series of light emitting diodes; two, three, four, or more lamps; two, three, four, or more lasers; or a combination of any of the foregoing, either as primary or as backup UV light sources.
In
In each of the first, second, and third embodiments discussed above, as well as those hereafter, power for a sterilizing machine may be provided by typical AC power from a typical residential outlet. Additionally, or in the alternative, the sterilizing machine may also contain a battery such as a lithium-ion or nickel-metal hydride battery. This facilitates use in emergency environments or where an AC power source is unavailable or inconvenient.
In some situations, a UV light source may experience more wear from cycling on and off than if the UV light source was left on for an extended period of time. Such UV light sources may include medium and low-pressure mercury lamps. In such cases it may be beneficial to avoid cycling on and off the light source while still ensuring safety. This can be done by leaving the lamp on in a low-power or safe-power mode.
One safety measure that may be used with a UV light source is an optical sensor to determine if a hand is approaching or inserted into the machine. The safety conditions of the gloves may then be checked using the distinctive mark on the gloves prior to the hand fully entering the sterilizing machine. An exposed hand may be detected by checking the color and shape of the glove. The light source may be turned off if the gloves (or an ungloved hand) trigger an error condition. The error would then need to be resolved and the machine sterilizing machine reset. Mark placements on the gloves on the fingers, or on the tips of the fingers, allow for optical sensors to detect an issue more quickly so that improperly protected hands do not get exposed to the light source.
Before gloved hands or hand coverings should be inserted into the sterilization machine, one or more factors may be verified so as to allow for safe exposure. A first criteria may be that the hands are gloved. If a sterilizing machine was only to be used infrequently (e.g., less than 10 times per day), ungloved hands might not be a problem as the total exposure to the skin would be minimal and potentially safe. In other use cases, a service person's hands will be dosed many orders of magnitude higher (for example through increased light intensity per cleaning, increased exposure time per cleaning, and/or repeated application) such that exposure to the skin will surpass safe levels. Gloves may be a requirement in some use cases, most often when the device is used frequently.
A second criteria may be that the glove type is the correct type to absorb, block, or reflect enough ultraviolet light to sufficiently protect the hands. Different types of common disposable gloves greatly differ in transmittance of ultraviolet light. The article titled “Determination of the Attenuation Properties of Laboratory Gloves Exposed to an Ultraviolet Transilluminator”, published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene, explained that the average UVA percent transmittance using the radiometer method with an unstretched glove was 73.7%, 0.17%, and 1.12% for vinyl, nitrile, and latex, respectively. The average actinic percent transmittance for an unstretched glove was 13.6%, 0.011%, and 0.011% for vinyl, nitrile, and latex, respectively. [Gazdik, Edward et al. “Determination of the Attenuation Properties of Laboratory Gloves Exposed to an Ultraviolet Transilluminator.” Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene vol. 1:6. Pages 391-402. 17 Aug. 2010, doi: 10.1080/15459620490452013]. It is important to note that while latex gloves may have had a lower actinic percent transmission than latex gloves, the latex gloves tested were significantly thicker than the nitrile gloves tested, which may have a significant impact on transmission. While UV-A has high exposure allowances for the skin, when used in cases with very high frequency, it may still be an important safety consideration. Actinic transmission is of greater importance when considering safety. The differences between the transmittance are significant and may have a large impact on safety. Vinyl gloves might allow too much transmission of ultraviolet light for some, but not all, low-frequency use cases. Latex gloves may be suitable for some, but not all, medium or high frequency use cases, since they have the lowest actinic transmission, but they allow for a relatively large portion of UV-A when considering the cumulative exposure to the hands through the gloves. Latex allergies also may make it difficult for latex gloves to be standardized.
Nitrile gloves may in some cases provide ideal characteristics allowing for low UV-A and actinic UV transmission for lower thicknesses, but in use cases where a higher dose is desired for each treatment, nitrile gloves may still allow for too much exposure. To combat this, and depending on the use case, additives may be used in the nitrile mix (as well as other glove rubber or polymer mixes) such as carbon pigmentation or other ultraviolet absorbing or reflecting compounds. Gloves may also be coated in a metallic coating which may also improve the protection provided at the tradeoff of potentially increased cost. A thin reflective coating may be applied to the surface of the gloves to reflect either UV-B or UV-C wavelengths more to provide greater protection to the skin or increase the effectiveness of the germicidal light.
A third criteria may be the glove manufacturer, model, materials, and/or information inferred therefrom. Various formulations of glove materials may provide very different ultraviolet transmissive characteristics, as such, information concerning the manufacturer, glove model, or specific glove materials may be desirable to know so that it can be determined whether the gloves have sufficient ultraviolet blocking characteristics.
A fourth criteria may be the cumulative ultraviolet exposure of the glove. Gloves that have been exposed to high levels of ultraviolet may begin to decrease in elasticity or may break without a service person noticing, allowing for bare skin to be exposed to the ultraviolet light and/or permitting skin to come into contact with customers or items the customer interacts with. In other words, after each treatment, the gloves may potentially degrade or experience a change in properties, and this may be accounted for.
A fifth criteria may be the age of the gloves. Gloves may decrease in elasticity with age which may lead to unnoticed breakages and ultraviolet exposure. This also may be accounted for.
A sixth criteria may be the time that the gloves have been worn. As gloves are used, they may stretch over time. When gloves are stretched, they may transmit more ultraviolet light due to the reduced thickness or fracturing of the material. The amount of stretching that occurs with normal use depends on the formulation of the glove materials and the amount of time it is used for. A situation where an employer requires his employees to reuse gloves may lead to dangerous or even harmful exposure levels. Alternatively, some employees may try to use gloves for an extended period of time, or simply avoid changing them so as to be more time efficient.
A seventh criteria may be whether only the gloved portion of a hand, wrist, or arm is exposed. To ensure that skin that is uncovered by the right kind of glove is not exposed various measurements may be taken. The depth of the hand into the machine may in some cases be an important measure. Sensing or estimating skin exposure helps to ensure that no, or minimal, ungloved skin passes through a baffle or is otherwise exposed to UV light.
Other factors complicate this process. For instance, the angle of the hands entering the machine may allow for repeated exposure of the skin to ultraviolet light. Alternatively, sensors may not actually be measuring the position of the glove but may instead be measuring other items on the arm such as watches, jewelry, or sleeves. Any of these or other errors might allow for repeated exposure of unprotected skin and may have dangerous consequences. A service person may not notice that one of these factors is causing them to insert unprotected skin past the baffle and might continue using their technique for a prolonged period of time. In some cases, a single shift (or even a single exposure) may provide a high enough dose of ultraviolet radiation to cause lasting damage. Additionally, a wrong technique that exposes the skin can quickly become habitual, leading to daily excessive or harmful exposure.
In
More complex markings allow for each individual glove (or a pair of gloves) to store or link to data about the characteristics of the glove such as manufacturer, verification of standards, age of glove, the time a glove has been used, the number of treatments a glove has undergone, or other characteristics. This data may be stored on an external server and may be updated, directly or indirectly, by a sterilization machine. In some embodiments, the sterilization machine's controller is a network server that communicates with the sterilization machine using a network interface such as wired ethernet or Wi-Fi. The position of these complex marks may be determined with one or more optical sensors on a sterilizing machine. To further verify the authenticity of the origin of a glove and its safety standard, cryptographic signatures can be used with these more complex marks so that these characteristics can be definitively verified.
The high contrast marking in
In some circumstances, a scanner (for example, a barcode reader or a digital camera) may be used in place of the sterilization machine to scan the user's hand coverings. In such an embodiment, the scanner may communicate with a networked server that connects both to the scanner and the user's indicator device. In one embodiment, the user's gloves are scanned by the scanner. The scanner forwards the information encoded on the gloves to networked server. The server examines the glove information to determine whether the gloves should be changed in light of various factors such as the user having been located in an area requiring a glove change (e.g., a rest room), the amount of time elapsed since the gloves were last scanned, the amount of time elapsed since the gloves were put on, and/or other factors. The server then may provide an update to the user's indicator device, or to a visual or auditory output on the scanner, as to whether the gloves should be changed. The markings on the gloves may also serve to change the way the sterilization machine functions. Different types of gloves can have different marks such that the sterilization machine sets the treatment level such as power, wavelength, energy, and/or duration to some predetermined or calculated amount. This may be beneficial in some use cases as different applications may require different amounts of pathogen reduction or inactivation. For instance, a medical use case would require a very high level of pathogen reduction while a cashier at a store would not necessarily need to have their gloves cleaned as thoroughly. When a different treatment level is used, different gloves may be used to optimize user protection and/or cost. It may be more expensive to create gloves with higher levels of protection, so segmenting glove types for different use cases may in some cases help ensure that costs are a low as possible for a specific use, while still providing adequate protection and sterilization.
To demonstrate the effects of glove type for different light sources, UV-C target dosage, and that skin exposure is limited, calculations were made to find the maximum number of treatments to the surface of the gloves that does not exceed safety standards. The unprotected skin limit for total actinic UV-B and UV-C radiation exposure given by the ACGIH TLV booklet [American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists. Ultraviolet Radiation: TLV® Physical Agents 7th Edition Documentation] is 3 mJ/cm{circumflex over ( )}2 and was used as the upper limit for the glove exposure calculations in Tables 1-3 below. This limit may be conservative and perhaps the upper safe limit is higher. While UV-C transmission through gloves may still be worth considering, the data used for the transmission of different wavelengths of light through gloves appears to suggest that very little UV-C is transmitted through any glove material, while glove materials typically have a much higher UV-B transmittance. This suggests that to calculate the maximum number of gloved hand exposures to UV radiation, both the parts of the UV light spectrum emitted as well as the glove transmission for each part of the UV spectrum should typically be taken into consideration.
To estimate the UV-B output of various light sources, the amount of UV-B energy for every unit of UV-C energy was determined by comparing relative intensities on a spectrometer. Such estimates are useful to show that the composition and type of glove can be an important safety concern. For a low-pressure mercury lamp, it can be estimated that a value of energy 2% of the UV-C energy output is emitted in the UV-B range. For a medium pressure mercury lamp, it can be estimated that a value of energy 130% of the UV-C energy output is emitted in the UV-B range. For a xenon flash lamp, it can be estimated that a value of energy 60% of the UV-C energy output is emitted in the UV-B range. An LED's output in the UV spectrum varies widely among manufacturers and typically their specifications may be relied upon absent independent testing. Lasers are typically narrowly focused on only their specified wavelength.
All of these measures may vary with configuration and manufacturer and may in some cases actual transmission through the glove may need to be calculated using other techniques, such as directly testing transmission through the preferred glove type for each wavelength. Some of the glove transmission percentages may be found in measurements from the article titled “Determination of the Attenuation Properties of Laboratory Gloves Exposed to an Ultraviolet Transilluminator” found in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
To calculate the maximum number of treatments, the limit for actinic UV exposure was divided by the UV energy output and then multiplied by the glove actinic transmission rate. Note that for some jobs such as security personnel at airports or train stations, the number of treatments in a single shift may total in the thousands. The UV-C doses for which these conditions were calculated also may be significantly higher if it was wanted or necessary. It is also important to note that the required UV-C dose to kill or inactivate pathogens is often lower in sources that emit more UV-B due to the action of UV-B to kill or inactive pathogens or to amplify the effects of UV-C.
Table 1 is a reference for a low-pressure mercury lamp, and the table provides a comparison of a glove type and a UV-C dosage in mJ/cm2, estimates the corresponding UV-B dosage, and provides a maximum number of treatments for that corresponding glove type such that the total skin exposure to UV-B is less than 3 mJ/cm2. The vinyl, latex, and blue nitrile numbers were gathered from Attenuation Properties of Laboratory Gloves Exposed to an Ultraviolet Transilluminator” found in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene. The black nitrile and black high carbon nitrile numbers are estimates based on thickness and carbon absorption data. Table 2 and Table 3 are corresponding references for a medium pressure mercury lamp and a xenon flash lamp, respectively.
There are various adjustments possible on the sterilization machine. Other adjustments that can be specified or implied by the markings on the gloves or other measurements may include, without limitation, the minimum amount of time between treatments, the amount of position certainty required, and/or light leakage via external or internal UV light sensors.
Optical markings may be placed anywhere on the glove that an optical sensor can reliably detect and read. In some use cases, having a consistent, known placement for a mark is sufficient for the glove position to accurately be determined. Some examples of mark placement include but are not limited to the cuffs of the glove, the top back of the hand, or the palm of the hand. These different placements each have their own benefits and require different placements of the optical sensors to detect them. Placing the marking on the cuff ensures that the hand is covered to the baffle. Placing the mark on the palm of the glove can be used to check that the hand is open before treatment. A combination of different markings in different places on the glove may in some cases provide optimal results.
Additionally, the hand coverings in embodiments shown in
Additionally, the hand coverings themselves may serve as an indication to customers of the time since the coverings were last sterilized by using color changing, time sensitive materials or pigmentation in the coverings that either changes color based on the time since the user last sterilized their hand coverings or begins changing color as soon as the hand coverings have been removed from packaging. Some exemplary embodiments include embodiments where photochromic pigmentation in the hand coverings begins at, or is brought to, a color that indicates safety by exposure to the germicidal light source in the machine and changes (or reverts) to a color that indicates that the gloves have not been sterilized in an acceptable time period when unexposed to the germicidal light source for a period of time. Additionally, photochromic pigments may be used to indicate when a glove has passed its usable life and is no longer safe to be treated. Many chemical compositions exist for photochromic pigments. There are different classes of photochromic materials or chemicals that are used in photochromic pigments that may include many different chemical formulas. Some examples of photochromic chemical classes that may be used include: Spiropyrans, spirooxazines, and diarylethenes. These photochromic material classes all react to ultraviolet light and revert to an original state when exposed to the normal conditions that a glove may experience such as being exposed to visible light or heat from the body.
Other parts may serve to indicate the state of hand coverings. For example, an indicator device can also be used to communicate with, or receive input from, a sterilizing machine to indicate when hand coverings should or must be changed and/or sterilized. In some cases, the indicator device may be carried on a user at all times. There are various different placements for an indicator device, including but not limited to: attached to a hand covering; attached to the wrist portion of a hand covering; worn on a user's wrist; attached on a shirt pocket or shirt collar; worn alongside a name tag; or worn on a belt. The same indicator device may be used for all different mounting options, or a different type of indicator device may be used.
One such embodiment is a wrist mounted indicator device shown in
An embodiment of an indicator is depicted in
Sensory indicators used in the indicator device may include lights, screens, sound makers such as a buzzer or speaker, and/or a vibratory motor. More than one sensory indicator may be used in the device. For example, green, yellow, and red lights may be used to indicate the amount of time left before the hand coverings should or must be treated. After different amounts of time after treatment, the lights may change colors to indicate to the user and to others how much time is left until the hand coverings must be treated again. A screen may also be used to indicate the amount of time left before the hand coverings need to be sanitized again. Additionally, a vibration motor can also provide indication to the user to alert them when certain time intervals are reached. An auditory signal may also be used when the time interval is near and/or has been surpassed. Any combination of these indicators may be used, depending on the applicable use case(s). Sensor devices, either external or integrated into the sterilization machine, may also be used to shorten the time intervals on the indicator device.
Mounts, hook and loop fasteners (e.g., Velcro®), or straps may be used to secure the device to different places on the body. A potential power supply for the device includes but is not limited to a rechargeable battery, a disposable battery, or a wireless power source.
An interval circuit and/or software may be included in the indicator device to alert the service person, customer, supervisor, and/or other people in the area that a re-treatment of the hand coverings should be performed this interval may include but is not limited to a timer, point of sale input, proximity sensor, “next customer” sensor, pressure sensing pad, and/or a body heat sensor. These sensing methods help indicate when a service person has finished interacting with a customer, and thus when the hand coverings may need to be treated. An interval sensor may also be set to indicate a time period or maximum number of cycles beyond which the gloves must be replaced. For example, after N number of customers, or after each break, or after each shift, after so many units of time, and/or after some specified criteria or set of criteria.
Another embodiment for an interval circuit or process for an indicator device is depicted in
In addition to, or as an alternative to, the indicator device, other devices such as a sterilization machine or a sensor may be used to process different events that trigger the indicator device. The design and implementation of such devices depends on the environment in which they would be used. These devices may provide inputs to the indicator device that may allow for triggering based on something other than just a time condition. These additional inputs may be relayed to the indicator device from a sterilization machine and/or the additional sensors may directly communicate to the indicator device. The additional sensor inputs may include but are not limited to a point-of-sale input, proximity sensor, “next customer” sensor, pressure sensing pad, body heat sensor, key card connected sensor, and/or an embedded equipment runtime sensor. Any event that may be detected may be related to an event that indicates interaction with a customer or potentially contaminated object. As such, many different sensors may be combined in one environment to account for different pre-programmed events that would risk the contamination of the gloves. An exemplary interaction between the indicator device and sensors is shown in
The embodiment of
Another embodiment is shown in
Optical sensors may determine the position of the gloves in relation to the opening of the baffles on the sterilization machine including hand depth and angle. To determine the age of gloves in an implementation where all gloves from a verified manufacturer have the same mark, data about how often an establishment is purchasing new gloves and when those gloves were manufactured. To determine the number of times a glove has been treated in this implementation, shift change data may be used, a basic count on the sterilization machine may be used if a server remains at the same sterilization machine for a shift, an average of the number of treatments for each server may be used by aggregating data from all the sterilization machines in an establishment, or the indicator device may be used to track the number of times it has been reset and wirelessly communicate with the sterilization machine to ensure the gloves have not been treated too many times to be safe.
Once an employee wearing the hand coverings finishes dealings with a customer, the employee will insert their hands into the machine. The machine will sense the position of the gloved hands. When the hands have been inserted at the proper depth, the sensor will detect when the hands have reached the optimal position triggering the controller. Only when the hands are detected at a proper or an acceptable depth, will the controller activate the germicidal light source.
Pathogens can develop resistance to ultraviolet light. There are two main mechanisms of ultraviolet resistance in pathogens: photo-protection and DNA repair. Photo-protection is of the highest concern when addressing the issue of ultraviolet resistance, since it can increase the required ultraviolet dose to kill or inactivate pathogens much more than DNA repair mechanisms, since the damage that DNA repair mechanisms can solve is limited. Some photo-protection methods work by increasing the absorption of ultraviolet light in the exterior of the pathogen, which protects the genetic material of the pathogen. Other forms of photoprotection do exist but absorption is the particular mechanism that is being addressed. There is no generally accepted solution to address Ultraviolet resistance in pathogens. A mix of different disinfecting methods are often combined to attempt to minimize the impact of resistance to any particular disinfecting method. This has caused even more dangerous pathogens that are resistant to a multitude of different disinfecting methods and leads to different items being disinfected less often.
Ultraviolet resistance is also of special import when considering its widespread use in scenarios where the velocity of pathogens is high, such as when there are many interactions between people such as at places of travel or other high-density areas. The high velocity of pathogens makes resistance to different disinfecting methods develop more quickly, and such resistant strains of pathogens may quickly become the dominant strain, making commonly used methods of disinfection less effective.
The increased absorption of UV provided by a photo-protection mechanism makes it significantly more difficult to kill or deactivate pathogens, although it allows for another weakness that can be targeted using similar ultraviolet light sources, in a different configuration. By using high energy pulses of light energy, the absorptive characteristics of the photo-protective coating can be exploited to create higher surface temperatures that ultimately lead to a greater thermal shock in the exterior of the pathogen. Therefore, a source of UV light, when modulated in a different manner, can be used to kill or deactivate pathogens that would typically require extraordinarily high doses of UV light, which necessitates longer exposure or higher intensity of light. In many cases, implementing either of these measures (longer exposure or higher light intensity) is not feasible.
Ultraviolet resistant pathogens may require doses over ten times as high as their non-UV resistant counterparts and many systems are designed with a specific target UV dose that would be much too low for UV resistant pathogen and cannot be increased because of the existing design constraints. Additionally, with even higher doses, a similar problem may occur where even more UV resistant pathogens emerge that again cannot be disinfected with existing equipment.
Instead, a balance can be struck where pathogens that are UV resistant can be kept in check and killed or deactivated by a single apparatus without changing the ultraviolet dose. When pathogens develop ultraviolet resistance, they are necessarily making a tradeoff of absorbing more light energy in their exterior whether it be the protein shell in viruses or spores, or the cell wall of a bacterium. With traditional ultraviolet light sources, such a tradeoff allows for their genetic material to be protected from the ultraviolet light, while posing little disadvantage to the pathogen in such an environment. When using a high energy pulse of UV light, the higher absorption of UV light in the photo-protective material of the pathogen makes it absorb more thermal energy from the UV light, and therefore can cause a greater thermal shock in the pathogen. Thermal shock has been shown to be an effective method of killing or deactivating pathogens, but it has not been used in such a way to address the UV resistance of pathogens. Such a relationship is very beneficial for all aspects of UV disinfection since it allows for a lower ultraviolet dose to be used to kill or deactivate even highly ultraviolet resistant pathogens. Additionally, pulsing of the ultraviolet light decreases the incidence of ultraviolet resistance since ultraviolet resistant pathogens would not be preferentially selected since the thermal shock triggered through the pulsing would target their photo-protective elements, while the general nature of the ultraviolet light would target the non-ultraviolet-resistant pathogens.
Some pathogens, such as spores, are not only resistant to ultraviolet light, but also heat and many other disinfecting methods. Pulsed ultraviolet light (i.e., 250 ms or less of UV radiation at some certain power output) is useful against these kinds of very resilient pathogens. These pathogens still may be susceptible to thermal shock, although repeated thermal cycles may be necessary to deactivate or kill these pathogens. The most effective time between pulses can be determined to provide the greatest effect in the shortest period of time for specific known pathogens. Repeated thermal cycles will create high stress in pathogens which can provide a greater germicidal effect.
The light source will remain on or will be pulsed for an adequate amount of time to eliminate, deactivate, or disable all or a significant amount of surface pathogens on the hand coverings. Table 4 and Table 5 show the amount of time required using a UV-C light source to achieve a target UV-C dose to obtain a 3 log reduction for a generic pathogen. In Table 5, the charge time represents a hypothetical time necessary to charge the UV-C light source capacitor to enable pulsing of the light.
Log reduction is a mathematical term that is used to express the relative number of living microbes that are eliminated by disinfection. The term “disinfection” can sometimes be used in different fields to mean a specific log reduction of a specific pathogen. In the following examples, the term “disinfection” is used as a way to describe a range of log reductions for various pathogens.
For example, the 6 mJ/cm{circumflex over ( )}2, target UV-C dose is sufficient to provide a higher than single log reduction of SARS-CoV-2 virus, at least 2 log reduction for Staphylococcus aureus, almost a single log reduction for Streptococcus faecalis, and a 3 log reduction in Salmonella typhimurium (ATCC 6539), and many more pathogens. [Malayeri, Adel Haji et al. “Fluence (UV Dose) Required to Achieve Incremental Log Inactivation of Bacteria, Protozoa, Viruses and Algae.” IUVA News vol. 18:3. Fall 2016, https://uvsolutionsmag.com/stories/pdf/archives/180301_UVSensitivityReview_full.pdf] [HeBling, Martin et al. “Ultraviolet irradiation doses for coronavirus inactivation—review and analysis of coronavirus photoinactivation studies.” GMS hygiene and infection control vol. 15 Doc08. 14 May 2020, doi:10.3205/dgkh000343].
The 10 mJ/cm{circumflex over ( )}2 target dose can achieve higher levels of reduction in pathogens listed in the 6 mJ/cm{circumflex over ( )}2 target dose in addition to a single log reduction of Murine norovirus, at least single log reduction of various types of Poliovirus, at least single log reduction of various Coxsackievirus strains, over 5 log reduction of Helicobacter pylori, and more.
Higher target doses provide higher log reductions for all pathogens listed. 40 mJ/cm{circumflex over ( )}2 is a UV-C dose that can cause significant decreases in most pathogens and is often used in water treatment for its high effectiveness against an array of pathogens. [Templeton, Michael. “Basic Principles of UV Disinfection.” Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Imperial College London. https://www.un-ihe.org/sites/default/files/3_-_templeton.pdf]. Other, higher energy levels are effective against more UV-C resistant pathogens such as spores and UV-C resistant virus strains and may be useful in settings where high cleanliness is necessary such as in the medical industry.
While some lower UV-C doses are less effective, the doses may add cumulatively for multiple treatments. For example, if a customer is interacting with a server and a pathogen that requires a dose of 60 mJ/cm{circumflex over ( )}2 is transferred to the surface of the gloves for a given reduction, after one treatment of the surface of the gloves at 6 mJ/cm{circumflex over ( )}2 the pathogen is still significantly reduced and after each successive treatment, more reduction in the pathogen occurs, and the 60 mJ/cm{circumflex over ( )}2 dose is reached after 10 treatments. The relationship between the reduction in pathogens between treatments may not scale linearly, but the effect may allow for lower UV-C doses to still significantly decrease transmission.
The calculations are approximations of the time required to achieve a UV-C dose with a constant output light source of known power. Constant output sources may include low pressure mercury lamps, medium pressure mercury lamps, UV-C LED arrays, UV-C lasers, and more that are driven with a constant output. For these calculations, the surface area of two average sized hands is about 1 square meter. The coefficient of reflection is assumed to be 0.75, which can approximate an aluminum reflective enclosure. Since, the fingertips are the most important touched surface, it is assumed that they are the area that is being considered, although the coefficient of reflection of 0.75 is conservative and may work to approximate other areas on the surface of the gloves. The time required is calculated by multiplying the target dose by the reflection coefficient and dividing by the surface area of two average hands multiplied by the UV-C power output.
After the light source has been emitting for an adequate duration to sanitize the hand coverings, the machine may provide an indication whether visual, auditory, tactile, and/or through other signals such an electronic signal to another device indicating the exposure of the gloved hands has concluded.
Additionally, other indicating devices such as indicating bracelet, photochromic gloves, and interval circuit and/or hardware may indicate to the server and customers when the hand coverings have been treated and the server is ready for the next interaction. The user will be prompted by a signal to remove their hands and safely interact with the next customer.
In some circumstances, treating the surface of the gloves alone may not maintain cleanliness. When the surface of the gloves comes into contact with a significant amount of potentially contaminated liquid or solid matter, the ability for the surface to be treated is greatly decreased. Additionally, even if all of the potential biological contaminants mixed with a significant amount of liquid or solid matter could be killed or inactivated from the surface of the gloves, a great degree of physical contamination would still occur without changing gloves. It is important to acknowledge the importance of situations where gloves must be changed rather than treated and a method to ensure that gloves are always changed in those situations.
It is possible that changing gloves, like many other biosecurity measures such as hand washing after potential physical contamination, can often be forgotten or even consciously neglected. Changing gloves in medical environments, food processing, and more is essential in preventing unnecessary infections and pathogen transmission. The indicator device described can also be used to alert and enforce when gloves must be changed. This can be done in a system with the gloves, the sterilizing machine, and external sensors or in a system that omits the sterilizing machine.
To determine when gloves must be changed sensors similar to the ones described to trigger the indicator to prompt a user to treat their gloves may be used to trigger the indicator to prompt a user to change their gloves. Proximity sensors, equipment sensors, and more may be used to determine times when glove changes may be necessary or beneficial. With these sensors and potentially more, the device can determine situations where there is a high chance that the gloves have been physically contaminated and need to be changed after an interaction. For example, at a doctor's office if a doctor or nurse enters a room where blood is typically drawn, the indicator device can alert that a glove change is necessary after leaving the room.
Another example is that in most any environment, if an employee uses the restroom, they must change their gloves. Equipment such as meat freezers or medical devices that are associated with physical contamination of the surface of the gloves can also cause an indication that a glove change is necessary. Another use case is designating objects that certain workers should not touch, or they will be required to change their gloves. Some examples of such situations are if a waiter at a restaurant touches bussing equipment, if a non-janitorial employee touches janitorial supplies such as a mop, if a secretary at a hospital touches items that are known to be contaminated with bodily fluids, and many more. This may be achieved by proximity sensing. A similar indicating scheme to the ones described to prompt gloves to be treated can be used to prompt a user to change their gloves.
To ensure that the gloves are changed whenever an event that requires a glove change is detected by the indicator device, the markings on the gloves can either be scanned by the indicator device itself, a sterilizing machine, or an external scanning device to prove that the gloves have been changed. Specific or nonspecific marked gloves may be used. With a specific mark, a glove change can be electronically verified since each glove has a different mark that can be detected. With a nonspecific mark, other factors such as the indicator device physically attaching to the cuff of the glove may serve as a verification that gloves have been changed.
This patent application claims priority to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 17/917,444 which is a national stage filing under 35 U.S.C. § 371 of PCT Application No. PCT/US2021/048916 filed Sep. 2, 2021 and entitled “METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR SANITIZATION OF HAND COVERINGS” which PCT application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 62/706,903 filed Sep. 16, 2020, and the disclosure of each of the foregoing is incorporated by reference herein in their entirety.
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| Number | Date | Country | |
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| Number | Date | Country | |
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| Number | Date | Country | |
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| Parent | 17917444 | US | |
| Child | 17961297 | US |
