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Disinfection Technology/Methods for Computer Equipment?
smammon asks: "I manage the IT department for a pretty average hospital. Our equipment is used everywhere, including the patient rooms, operating suites, and hallways. We expect it to move into more areas (hands) in the future with advent of more and more wireless/handheld technology. Our problem is that even with constant employee education and regular maintenance/cleaning efforts on our part - it is still very common for equipment to become contaminated with all manner of nasty goo. We have been looking for a method of disinfection that kills the bugs without killing the equipment. So far the only reasonably good looking alternative is vaporized hydrogen peroxide. Problem is that it's not known to positively kill the kind of tough bug that lives on surfaces. Anyone know of, developing, or selling a method for disinfection of sensitive equipment? Any innovative solutions from the geek collective?"
...would gamma irradiation work? Normally that would be perfect for non-destructive sterilization (and you may already have the equipment) but I have no idea what it would do to microelectronics.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Our problem is that even with constant employee education and regular maintenance/cleaning efforts on our part - it is still very common for equipment to become contaminated with all manner of nasty goo.
Actually, a lot of people who use their computers in the privacy of their own homes for, uh, recreational purposes have the same problem. You'll probably get lots of helpful ideas from the slashdot crowd!
GMD
watch this
Will rubbing alcohol do? Or do you need to use hydrogen fluoride to kill the bugs? If you want to have a keyboard that will stand up to X antibiotic, then you need to tell us what X is.
I'd recommend getting a waterproof keyboard and disinfect it like you'd clean a trash can. But if you're going to give it a betadine bath, you probably want something that won't discolor.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
To wit, while this may not totally *disinfect* your gear, this will most certainly decruft it.
This sig no verb.
Wrap up everything with plastic. Switch out the plastic.
/low-budget
Keep the computers and monitors in goo proof cases, and maintain a supply of disposable keyboards and mice. Keyboards and mice can be had for less than $10 retail, and much less than that online or wholesale. The other alternative is those $40 waterproof keyboards. I don't know of any waterproof pointing devices though. Perhaps some industrial strength touchpads?
You need to select devices that can be hosed down. That means comercial devices that almost meet NEMA 4. The only way to get rid of goo is soap and water. Retail devies are just not ment for a medical environment. And you must get rid of the goo BEFORE you sterilize. That goo can carry pirons (sp?) even after EtO so plan for soap and water. There are sources of ruggedized tools such as Symbol Technologies. You are going to pay more, but you have a responsability to do it right.
Go to a medical or engineering school and ask for their Bioengineering department and ask for help. This is way over the head of /.
The thing you are most concerned with is the input device - everything else can be in a sealed box so type into Google "industrial keyboards" and hunt to your heart's content.
You might, for example, discover on the first page of returns the MGR Keymate 2 which is "a sealed keyboard featuring a smooth membrane ideal for food and beverage and medical applications where wash down / sterilization is needed." (emphasis mine).
You may even discover that many of these keyboards are rated for use in explosive environments, say where you have things like ether, oxygen and alcohol though I can't possibly think of such a place at the moment.
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"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
if you spend some extra dough on custom hermeticaly sealed carriers/cases/enclosuers for these devices, be it lexan, aluminum, staneless steel, plastic wrap etc. If you are using tablets and touch screen devices how about using the hardmaterial to cover the bulk of it and a removeable replaceable plastic covering for the screen section (like some cellphone cases). Once you get the equipment back you toss the screen protecor (depening on type) and remove the device from its hermeticaly sealed protecive home and set the device someplace safe and proceed to disinfect the rest in the appropriate manner.
You can get the goo off of most keyboards in a normal household dishwasher, so long as your water heater isn't set too high. Just make sure things are dried out properly before you try using them again. This won't sterilize things, but if you do it regularly you can at least make sure there is nothing for the nasties to eat when they do get inside. (Which does not solve all problems, but helps a great deal)
Note that you need to do a full backup before trying this, and I'd try it with some sacrificial systems first. Wouldn't surprize me if harddrives and cdroms don't survive this treatment. See if you can re-oil all the fans. At least find out how long the average machine survives a this. If you find a machine normally last 48 cycles, then plan on once a month washings, and throw them away (recycle) after 4 years. This should help a lot A lot of labor, but I know of system admins who regularly take a keyboard home for washing.
From what I understand about hospital breading sterilzation resistant strains of nasties, I would want you throwing everything out every few years anyway. I'm not an expert, but I would think that you are like most other IT deparments with plenty of obsolete, throw away, machines that you can expiriment with before working with machine you care about. Once you know what works and for how long you can make a plan which includes a few (statistical number of) machines not surviving.