Pathogen Surrogate Tracking for False-Negative Sanitation Checks
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing sanitation methods struggle to ensure thorough cleaning of surfaces by relying on visual inspection or hazardous pathogen testing, leading to false negatives and incomplete sanitation processes.
Innovation Solution
A sanitation management system using pathogen surrogates with non-coding DNA sequences and biofilm carriers, tracked by augmented reality, ensures comprehensive sanitation by recording application locations and facilitating targeted post-sanitation inspections.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If pathogen surrogates are applied to surfaces prior to sanitation process, then sanitation efficacy can be verified, but false negatives occur when surrogates are not applied to all surface areas
Solution Approach 1:
The system divides the surface into multiple discrete locations, each marked with a unique identifier. Pathogen surrogates are applied to multiple segmented locations across the surface, ensuring comprehensive coverage. The sanitation verification system then checks each segment individually, preventing false negatives by ensuring all areas are accounted for.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary marking of surface locations with unique identifiers before applying pathogen surrogates. This preliminary action creates a predetermined inspection plan that guides the sanitation verification process, ensuring that all surface areas are systematically covered and eliminating the possibility of missing contaminated areas.
2Ease of operation
If visual inspection is used to verify sanitation, then the process is simple and quick, but it cannot detect invisible pathogens
Solution Approach 1:
The system uses pathogen surrogates as intermediaries to bridge the gap between visual inspection capabilities and pathogen detection needs. These surrogates are visible markers that mimic pathogen behavior, allowing inspectors to use simple visual methods while actually tracking surrogate presence/absence to infer pathogen sanitation status.
Solution Approach 2:
The pathogen surrogates incorporate visible markers or color indicators that allow for easy visual detection. After sanitation processing, the presence or absence of these colored markers provides immediate visual feedback on sanitation efficacy, combining the simplicity of visual inspection with the precision of pathogen tracking.
3Measurement precision
If hazardous pathogens are applied to equipment for testing, then sanitation efficacy can be directly measured, but it introduces safety hazards
Solution Approach 1:
The system uses non-hazardous pathogen surrogates as safe copies that replicate the behavior and sanitation response of actual pathogens without posing safety risks. These surrogate markers allow for direct measurement of sanitation efficacy through their presence or absence, eliminating the need to handle dangerous biological materials while maintaining measurement accuracy.
Solution Approach 2:
The pathogen surrogates are designed as inexpensive, single-use markers that can be safely applied, processed, and disposed of. Their temporary nature and low cost allow for comprehensive testing without the safety concerns associated with persistent or hazardous biological agents, enabling routine sanitation verification.
Data Source
AI summary
A sanitation management system maintains records of exemplary locations on an item to be sanitized and indicates those locations to a person or system charged with applying a pathogen surrogate prior to a sanitation process. The sanitation management system maintains records of where the pathogen surrogate was applied prior to the sanitation process. Following the sanitation process, the sanitation management system indicates to an inspector, or an inspection system, locations of where the pathogen surrogate was applied for the purpose of facilitating testing of the sanitation process by checking for the presence of the pathogen surrogate at some or all of those locations. This can ensure that the inspection process is relevant to the sanitation process and less likely to generate false negatives where the inspection finds a lack of the pathogen surrogate not due to cleaning, but due to lack of application of the pathogen surrogate.