HyGreen Active Sensor Network Makes Sure Hands Are Kept Clean

Great post. I caught it a couple weeks ago and had a couple hospitals ask questions about it. Nice they have added the video too. I would think the system would pay for itself pretty quickly too.

http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2009/06/real-time-monitoring-of-when-you-washed.html

Although I applaud the efforts of the developers for trying to deal with nosocomial infections I feel like this system will run into a few problems, especially in larger clinics.

Physicians aren't the only ones who have patient contact and in a large percentage of cases the nurses and techs will have most, if not all, of the direct patient contact. Nurses, and especially techs go in and out of patient rooms (very frequently in the ER) for something other than to check the patient. They may be monitoring vitals, grabbing clean linens, restocking, cleaning the room, preparing treatment set ups, a multitude of things.

It is completely unrealistic to expect a tech to was his hands 6 times to restock linens in 6 different rooms. Will this record as 6 unwashed patient encounters? Won't this affect the data being collected? There are so many patient contacts that go unnoticed that this may serve to open eyes but I doubt the accuracy of "unwashed patient encounters" that they will receive in departments that either have a high patient turnover or make use of a large auxiliary staff.

And the little flashing green light is a good indicator to patients that they need to protect themselves but I think gloves are just as noticeable and if we could commit to wearing gloves for all patient contact (compliance is a large issue here, maybe we need the patients to be the impetus) will cut down on direct contact transmission quite a bit.

Anyway, I like the system but I feel there are a few flaws that could make the collected data far skewed, but it is a step in the right direction.

Personally I think putting stats like "250 people die every day due to infections they contract in the hospital" will be very effective, but we hate to make ourselves look bad. Patients need to be just as accountable as the caregivers but we need to inform them of the dangers so they can actively protect themselves.