Students from the Budapest University of Technology and Economics have developed a system that can provide automated verification of proper hand washing. Though clinicians may wash their hands often enough, and there are systems that make sure it happens before every clinical encounter, proper procedure that gets every nook and cranny clean is not always followed. The Stery-Hand is a dark box with a digital camera and UV lighting that detects where UV-reflective disinfectant was used and provides qualitative results via a laptop. The project just won first place at the European Innovact Campus Awards 2011.
From the project poster presented at Innovact:
Usage: regular hand washing procedure with the UV-reflective disinfectant:
hands are inserted into the box one at a time -> pictures taken with remote control software performs image processing automated segmentation and clustering hand contour determined from intensity image three clusters built: red = not treated, blue = sufficient, green = well treated Application: medical institutions, educational centers, public health care, food industry
Stery-Hand poster from Innovact…(.pdf)
Innovact Campus Awards winners…