Local hospitals invest in 'germ zapping' robots to decrease infection rates

In hospitals, bacteria and viruses that sometimes cause the sick to get sicker affect thousands of people every year. One in 20 patients contracts a health care-associated infection during a hospital stay, according to health.gov. In 2011, the most recent year available on the website, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated roughly 722,000 infections occurred in acute care hospitals — from all types of bacteria – and caused or contributed to 75,000 deaths each year. Both MU Health Care and Boone Hospital Center are using new cleaning technology for disinfecting hospital rooms — "germ zapping" robots.