Affordable Complete Hospital Sterilization System

Unique, cost-effective, highly efficient and modular sterilization system for rural health care centres providing protection from infectious diseases.

Hospital acquired infectious diseases are the leading cause of deaths world-wide. Of every 100 hospitalized patients at any given time, 7 in developed and 10 in developing countries acquire at least one health care-associated infection. Health-associated infections (HAIs) affect 5 to 10 percent of hospitalized patients in the U.S. per year, approximately 1.7 million HAIs occur in U.S. hospitals each year, resulting in 99,000 deaths which is estimated $20 billion in healthcare costs. The endemic burden of health care-associated infections is also significantly higher in low- and middle-income than in high-income countries, particularly the patients admitted to intensive care units and in neonates. New borns are at higher risk of acquiring health care-associated infection in developing countries, with infection rates 3 to 20 times higher than in high-income countries. Last year, in India alone, infections caused by resistant bacteria killed 58,000 infants and affected millions of adults resulting in huge economic burden. These infections are caused due to lack of or ineffective disinfection & sterilization of the hospital facilities especially rural, primary healthcare set-ups. Furthermore, it leads to the development of bacterial resistance where the treatment is merely impossible due to unavailability of drugs that can kill resistant bacteria resulting in a high mortality rate. Hence, the quality of sterilization and disinfection is critical for the control and prevention of HAIs. 

In India, more than half of the hospitals either lack disinfection and sterilization facilities or does not have required equipment and trained staff for sterilization. Currently available methods use various chemical sterilants, which are unsafe, can induce microbial resistance, damage the instruments and are costly. We have developed a unique sterilization technology called “SteriOz” an integrated technology which is based on advanced oxidation process where ozone, pulsed UV, ultrasonics, and laser methods are integrated in one platform that is significantly effective in killing the bacteria & viruses including resistant strains. It is very effective since multi action system where ozone will disrupt the external outer membrane and expose the internal cell components such as DNA where UV will act upon and ultimately, kill the microorganisms. In case of resistant pathogens that are inert to such system, integration of ultrasonics and laser with specific frequencies will be utilized along with ozone to disrupt the cell membrane thus exposing the DNA. The system is very simple to operate, does not require any dangerous chemicals except minimal electrical energy, oxygen or air.

In the healthcare settings, this technology will provide complete sterilization for various purposes depending upon the requirement such as 1) instrument sterilization, 2) room sterilization, 3) intensive care unit sterilization 4) apparel sterilization, 5) surface sterilization. It is an affordable, safe, adaptable, sustainable solution that can be easily operated without a skilled employee. Hence, it is highly beneficial which allows health care facilities to receive a quality disinfection system that significantly reduces the number of infectious disease fatalities, number of neonatal deaths, ultimately reduces the development of resistant bugs and improves the economy of the country.

Common disinfection and sterilization methods are steam, ethylene oxide, formaldehyde, glutaraldehyde, peracetic acid. However most of the chemical methods are unsafe due to carcinogenicity. Our new technology is safe to use without any chemical or biological effects. Delivering a quality primary care to large populations is always challenging especially in rural India due to limited infrastructure. Our solution will provide a unique and complete sterilization system that is affordable, easy to operate, and ultimately improves the quality of health centres and significantly reduces hospital acquired infections, and economic burden.

The technology will create a microbial contamination free atmosphere in rural health facilities where the available technologies cannot be implemented due to high cost and requirement of skilled personnel. Therefore, our new integrated technology “SteriOz” which is based on advanced oxidation methods by utilizing pulsed UV, ultrasonics, ozone, and lasers that can significantly reduce microbial contamination including resistant pathogens. Our solution will provide a very low cost infrastructure that can remove the microbial contamination completely, can be operated by unskilled personnel as well and ultimately improves the health of patients and employees by preventing the infectious diseases.

In India, there are 1,53,655 subcentres, 25,308 primary health care centres, and 5396 Community health care centres. There are the approximately 15,000 health centres in rural area of south Indian states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. Initially, we will establish the technology in rural India and build a self-sustaining business that can provide across rural India.  This allows health facilities to receive quality disinfection system to decrease the number of infectious disease fatalities, decrease the number of neonatal deaths. Once we establish in rural and district level government hospitals and urban cities including private hospital sector as well. 

Once the technology is demonstrated, we will expand the technology implementation in 10000 medical care centres across India and want to simultaneously establish in other countries. Further we plan to reach 20% of the rural and remote health care centres across the Indian sub-continent and build an ecosystem where technical know-how can be transferred through licensing inorder to reach maximum areas.  In the long term, we plan to license the solution and technical know-how to the interested social impacting medical care groups to replicate globally.

Through various marketing and service teams.

Building a service model and empowering the local people.

Through NGOs, Government bodies, and through social networks bringing awareness about community healthcare.

Through 20 medical health centres around 2000 are benefited every month.

We plan to establish our technology at a minimum of 1000 primary health care centres in 12 months which serve approximately 20,000 per day and so approximately 7 million people per year. 

We plan to establish our technology at a minimum of 10000 primary health care centres in 3 years which serve approximately 70 million people.

One of the major objectives of our team is taking innovative basic discovery to the market with specific focus on social impact projects. Interdisciplinary team members have extensive research experience and knowledge in various fields: chemistry, biology, healthcare, mechanical, electronics, electrical & automation engineering, biochemistry, material science, artificial intelligence, and business (pharma, tech).The multidisciplinary experience of team members in research & development with commercialization focus will be best suited to take this project to market for social benefit. Our team has good communication skills with multidisciplinary knowledge that can reach out to stakeholders, organizations for successful implementation of the project.

Our primary project focus is public health care centres for which we will generate the funds from government agencies, and NGO’s. Similarly, we will focus on marketing in private health care facilities in India by joint ventures.

The business model is developed by focussing on direct product marketing. In the service model, we plan to generate the revenue by deploying the equipment to the regional locations where we will establish the business by creating micro- entrepreneurs in the rural areas.

MIT Solve is a global platform where scientists, innovators, entrepreneur, philanthropist, investors join under one roof. Hence, we would like to collaborate and develop our technology by seeking the global funding to collaborate with various partners across the world and establish the market in the different countries like India, USA, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa. We are seeking the support from MIT Solve to leverage the resources and the platform to grow our business model and build a network of front line disinfection/sterilization providers across the globe. 

Reachability to rural areas, influencing policy makers to implement the technology and services in massive scale to reach out to the last unreached, Funding and awareness of the technology across the globe.