Uncontained Medical UVC Light Testing for Healthcare Facilities and Laboratories

UV light safety risk for healthcare facilities and laboratories

There are three types of ultraviolet (UV) light: UVA, UVB and UVC. While UVC germicidal lamps are designed to kill bacteria and inactivating viruses, this technology poses a health and safety risk to patients and users if directly exposed, and the effects on medical equipment must be carefully considered.

Besides UVC equipment designed to individually disinfect medical tools and devices in enclosed or “contained” chambers, many healthcare providers are also now taking advantage of uncontained UVC technology to disinfect unattended rooms. These rooms may very well house complex electrical medical devices and laboratory equipment with relatively little previous surface or performance testing post exposure to UVC light. This inherently presents additional safety risk as end-use environments are sanitized by both new chemical compounds and UVC technology with limited harmonized protocol.

Uncontained UVC lighting solutions often involve companion predictive modeling to inform decisions about where to disinfect. Light rays may emanate from either smart/activated UVC appliance or robots. These robotic-enabled devices may be either stationary or roaming and are intended to clean and sanitize multiple room surfaces (fixtures, flooring and specialty healthcare products).

Testing UVC devices safety and performance

UL Solutions can help manufacturers of uncontained UVC devices that are deployed at healthcare facilities to address safety issues by testing and certifying them according to relevant safety standards. We can evaluate both finished healthcare equipment and components (ballasts, LED drivers, UVC sources, controls, sensors) to be used in device assembly.

Our services include:

• Photobiological assessments via specialty UV equipment
• Testing and evaluation to demonstrate compliance to applicable standards, such as UL/IEC 61010-1, the Standard for Medical Electrical Equipment, Part 1: General Requirements for Safety, and related safety testing.
• Third-party verification of performance claims such as ability for a device to disinfect a surface via our UL Marketing Claim Verification service.

Why work with UL Solutions for testing of UVC devices for Healthcare facilities and laboratories

• UL Solutions has contributed to numerous global safety, security, sustainability and quality standards. Our experts sit on more than 500 committees around the world. 
• UL Solutions is a trusted and respected brand around the world and a recent Global Brand Equity study ranks us first among 42 category brands.
• We partner with more than 60% of the Global 500 and our Marks appear on tens of billions of products around the world. 
• Our testing and compliance engineers work closely with standards committees to stay up to date on all the new amendments and upcoming changes. These committees include:
  • American National Standards Institute (ANSI)
  • International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC)
• Dedicated to healthcare industry innovation, we leverage decades of advanced technical, regulatory, and clinical expertise to help our customers manage regulatory and global market access issues.