Devices Promote Hand-Washing Compliance

How do you get harried health workers to wash their hands—every time they leave a patient’s room? Margaret Rhodes, writing for Wired, reports that on average hospital workers wash their hands only from 10% to 50% of the time when they enter or exist a patient’s room. That has led to almost 75, 000 deaths last year from healthcare-associated infections, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

At least two companies have stepped into the breach with technologies to remind doctors and nurses to wash. One, Biovigil Hygiene Technologies, LLC, of Ann Arbor, Michigan, makes an electronic badge that can detect infrared sensors that Biovigil installs in patient rooms. When a doctor sanitizes his hands and holds one up to the badge, sensors cue a green light. If a doctor delays washing, the light turns yellow. And if he ignores it completely, according to Rhodes, the light blazes red.

Rhodes quotes Brent Nibarger, chief client officer at Biovigil Hygiene Technologies, as saying, “A five-year-old can understand it, and a 90-year-old patient understands it. Everyone understands traffic light simplicity. Once you wear this on your chest and have your first patient interaction it instantly changes the accountability and behavior, because no one is going to be running around with a red badge, except in rare circumstances.”

A competitor is General Sensing Limited’s MedSense. Like Biovigil, General Sensing uses a clip-on device to remind doctors and nurses to wash their hands. The badge interacts with hand sanitizer stations and buzzes if the worker fails to use the sanitizer. Instead of chemical sensors, the badge interacts with mobile stations—like wall-mounted bottles of hand sanitizer rigged with sensors—negating the need for a system installation. If a doctor fails to use the hand sanitizer, General Sensing simply buzzes them. No lights flash red.

Both systems are able to collect data on which hospital workers are washing their hands and which are not. Being watched appears to be a major motivator. In her piece Rhodes quoted an article from the New York Times that reported when workers at the North Shore University Hospital on Long Island, New York, knew they were being watched, hand-washing compliance rates shot up from 10% to 88%.