How do you sanitize your smartphone in the hospital?

I'm not talking about erasing your data. If you're a health care professional, you're probably looking for effective (and safe) ways of sanitizing your smartphone and getting rid of all those germs and microbes that may be on your device. You don't want to pass along MRSA or VRE in the hospital, do you? I think it would be a fascinating study to evaluate how much MRSA or VRE we can find on hospital smartphones. For those who don't know, MRSA and VRE are antibiotic-resistant organisms that cause significant problems in the hospital setting.

So, what do you use to sanitize your smartphone? It won't survive an autoclave. Will antimicrobial wipes damage the device? Will alcohol pads suffice? The old soap and water won't do the trick, so what works? There's actually a device out there called Violight. It uses UV to sanitize your smartphone and here's what they're claiming: Germicidal UV light kills strep, e.coli, salmonella, listeria, and the H1N1 virus. It makes sense, doesn't it? My Philips Sonicare toothbrush includes a UV sanitation chamber.

Here's a little promotional video showing you the Violight.


Will we see a Violight at every nursing station? How about outside of every patient's room? I wonder if Violight has secured major contracts with hospitals yet.