iPad Technology Helps Monitor Hand Hygiene

A hygiene monitoring system repurposes iPad technology to ensure healthcare worker compliance with World Health Organization (WHO; Geneva, Switzerland) regulations.

The Safe-Hands hygiene monitoring and compliance record system actively detects patient or bed contact by caregivers while observing their hand hygiene activities, thereby assuring near 100% healthcare worker compliance with the WHO infection prevention 5 Moments for Hand Hygiene program. The system is based on capacitive touch detection technology to input and access information and detect unsanitized caregiver contact with a patient's intravenous (IV) line or instruments.

The monitoring system, which provides subcentimeter resolution, is positioned in a small assembly requiring just a single communication access point for Wi-Fi surveillance integration. Sensor area network modules provide remote status indications and readouts using color-coded animated displays associated with digital imaging detectors and recorders. Using sensors placed on the patient, bed, and medical equipment, the monitoring technology provides a means for determining the exact moment of actual physical contact between the healthcare worker, the patient, and their bed, ventilator, or IV line.

Person-to-person or person to medical device contact generates color coded graphics on the display screen, reflecting caregiver hygiene status, while simultaneously activating matching lights on caregiver and patient vibrating wrist bands and badges. Failure to have complied with required hand cleaning via locally placed sanitizers creates a forensic visual recording of the hygiene violation, which can be used for future re-education of the noncompliant caregiver. The Safe-Hands hygiene monitoring system is a product of Healthquest Technologies (Mcdonough, GA, USA).

“Now, when patients are visited by their doctors and nurses, everyone will know if proper hygiene precautions have been taken beforehand and the entire health care system will greatly benefit in lives and dollars saved,” said Safe-Hands inventor Richard Deutsch, MD.

“Hand hygiene is a critical and essential element in HAI prevention,” added William Jarvis, MD, a world-renowned expert in hospital acquired infections (HAI's). “Any technology that can detect and promote hand hygiene during the most important healthcare worker activities, i.e., patient and patient medical device contact, should become the standard for promoting hand hygiene.”

Related Links:
World Health Organization
Healthquest Technologies