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A growing number of hospitals are buying robots that kill bacteria such as C-difficile as they seek new tools to stop costly and deadly hospital-acquired infections. But there are questions about how best to use the new disinfection robots. The University of Vermont Medical Center, a health system based in Burlington, is one of hundreds of U.S. hospitals that have purchased a disinfection robot. Sally Hess, U-V's manager of infection prevention, said the two Xenex Disinfection Services robots purchased last year add an “extra level of protection” to the hospital's infection-control program. It removes the element of human error, she said. (Lee and Rice, 1/10)

Physicians at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs are using Watson to help them treat veterans with post traumatic stress disorder. The VA has launched a two-year pilot program to study new ways of searching electronic medical records and medical literature. The pilot, which will rely on simulations but use actual patient records, is intended to evaluate how the IBM technology can speed up clinical decisions. IBM is trying to transform the game-playing system into a commercially viable technology, and the VA is exploring whether doctors at all VA medical centers and clinics should eventually be linked to it. (Mirabella, 1/10)