A Sensor-based Platform for Hand Hygiene Tracking and Analysis

Project Summary This Small Business Innovation Research Phaseproject aims to develop and characterize a sensor based platform to track and analyze healthcare providershand hygiene quality and compliance automatically and continuouslyHealthcare Associated InfectionsHAIsare the most common type of complication for patients who are hospitalizedIn the United Statesout of everyhospitalized patients is affected by healthcare associated infectionsA good hand hygiene practice is one of the most effective measures to reduce transmission of pathogenic microorganisms to patientsHoweverrecent data shows that on average U Shealthcare providers clean their hands less than half of the times they shouldToday most hospitals still rely on direct observation to monitor healthcare providershand hygiene compliancewhich is very ineffectiveexpensivetime consuming and often results in biased dataThereforethe development of a fully automated and easy to use platform to continuously monitor the healthcare providershand hygiene compliance can have significant impact on clinical managementIn this research proposalwe will developprototype and test a low power hand hygiene sensor and develop the analytics software for hand hygiene compliance monitoringThe ultimate goal of this research is to develop a sensor based platform to help healthcare providers improve their hand hygiene practices and reduce healthcare associated infections Project Narrative This Small Business Innovation Research Phaseproject aims to develop and test a sensor based platform to automatically and continuously track and analyze hand hygiene compliance of healthcare providersSuccessful completion of the project and subsequent implementation of the platform in healthcare settings could lead to reduction of the transmission of healthcareassociated pathogens and the incidence of healthcare associated infections