Cross contamination between patients, medical personnel and home care givers can be a serious problem in patient nursing care. Whenever the integrity of the skin barrier is broken by surgical procedures, irritation, pressure sores, or burns, common skin bacteria may cause infections. Infection may be reduced by washing the skin with a good disinfectant, however, disinfectants often smell, sting, and burn, even kill viable skin cells. Iodine disinfectants are known to be wide spectrum bacteriocidals, fungicidals, and viricides, but have the reputation of staining, being smelly, and burning. We have invented a machine (the Electrodine) which produces a clean clear odorless stream of iodine water that contains exceptionally high concentrations of iodine and hypoiodic acid, the active bacteria killers and none of the smelly, irritating, burning ingredients. Electrodine solutions will be compared in this proposal to dilute Lugol's a common hospital product, for the ability to kill gram negate c and gram positive bacteria. They will also be tested for cytotoxicity on human skin cells in tissue culture. The Electrodine is fed tap water and produces iodine solutions of various concentrations on demand at liters/min flow rates. It has wide applications in surface disinfection, nursing, and home care.National Institute for Nursing Research (NINR)
