Beyond Hand Rubs: The Case for Continuous Disinfection
By Arunima Rajan
Mark Ereth founded and directed a multidisciplinary research group at Mayo Clinic with the primary aim of reducing the physiological trespass of the heart-lung machine.
During his 25 years at Mayo, Dr. Ereth provided anaesthesia and critical care to over 20,000 patients and authored more than one hundred peer-reviewed journal articles, abstracts, and book chapters. He has presented over 250 lectures nationally and internationally. He holds patents for four medical devices, including a heart-valve repair technology that has been commercialized and has benefited over a thousand patients worldwide.
Upon retiring from the Mayo Clinic, he founded an award-winning healthcare data and analytics firm. For the past six years, he has focused on combating airborne transmission of diseases and the health impact of air pollution. In this endeavour, he has evaluated various technologies, worked as a consultant in the field, and delivered a TEDx Talk: “One Less...” on April 6, 2022, at TEDx University Tulsa -- https://www.ted.com/talks/mark_ereth_one_less.
In his quest for improved indoor air quality, he recently joined PathogenFocus, Inc. as their Chief Medical Officer. In this role, Dr. Ereth has conducted numerous clinical, microbiologic, and sustainability studies on PathogenFocus’ non-thermal plasma air disinfection technology.
He also serves as Chief Medical Officer of InSitu Biologics. InSitu’s drug delivery matrix can prolong the duration of action of various medications, including local anaesthetics for nerve blocks to treat post-surgical pain, and the extended elution of injected anti-cancer therapies.
Dr. Ereth’s entrepreneurial spirit led him to co-found Cheetah Development, a non-profit based on a Micro-Venture Capital model aimed at growing local economies in rural Tanzania. Cheetah identifies, funds, and mentors entrepreneurs, helping them grow medium-sized businesses.
Dr. Ereth is a member of the Doctors Mayo Society, which honours physicians, scientists, and leaders dedicated to advancing the Mayo Clinic’s mission through global philanthropy. He is also a member of the Lundy Society, which recognizes those who achieve the rank of Professor of Anaesthesiology at Mayo Clinic for their significant contributions to their departments, the field, and their dedication to mentoring others.
In an interview with Arunima Rajan, he says that he personally favours some of the advanced engineering solutions that can provide airborne and surface disinfection automatically, continuously, and unobtrusively.
Where are you from and why do you do what you do?
My name is Mark Ereth. I'm an emeritus professor of anaesthesiology at the Mayo Clinic College Of Medicine and science. I reside in Rochester, Minnesota was it which is in the North Central part of the United States. I am a physician, scientist and Practice Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine. Long before covid I've been interested in airborne infections and methods to mitigate the spread of disease.
What is the significance of infection control in hospitals?
Infections represent the most common complication for hospitalised patients. Effective ubiquitous and inexpensive control of airborne and non-airborne pathogens is critical to patients and the staff and hospitals that serve them.
Have hospitals started giving more importance to it post covid? What impact did it have?
Certainly since Covid, there's been an increased awareness in airborne infections however, I think now that the pandemic has passed many institutions have been slow to implement additional changes and perhaps have become complacent, which of course is a mistake. To be honest, I'm not certain we are very far ahead of where we were pre-pandemic.
What are the common mistakes hospitals do when it comes to controlling infections?
To my thinking, the most common mistake that hospitals make in trying to control infections is that they avoid implementing some of the simple engineering base technologies that have that can have a big impact across airborne and non-airborne infections. It's one thing to place a patient in isolation treat with antibiotics and antivirals, which certainly help with one patient. There is no question that handwashing masking all can reduce the spread of infection. Having said that these are expensive and labour intensive activities. I personally favour some of the advanced engineering solutions that can provide airborne and surface disinfection automatically, continuously, and unobtrusively.
What are the latest innovations/tech in the sector?
I have personally been focused on a number of particle control technologies, early detection of airborne pathogens, as well as a novel and highly effective non-thermal plasma solution.
What is the most important part- latest tech/ adoption of health workers/ commitment of hospital?
For no touch technologies that operate in the background, there is little or no impact on the staff nor need to enhance adoption. If introducing labour intensive methods to further combat infection, this of course requires a significant commitment by the hospital and infection control groups, and to provide education to healthcare workers. Once again, no touch technologies that operate in the background have no such requirements.
With AMR increasing, what can India/developing countries learn from other countries?
Given the increasing antimicrobial resistance, it is more important than ever to control the spread of pathogens in hospitals. At the source. Once again I favour new technology that can ubiquitously deliver solutions that disinfect the air and the surfaces.
Got a story that Healthcare Executive should dig into? Shoot it over to arunima.rajan@hosmac.com—no PR fluff, just solid leads.