Versus checks hand washing compliance in hospitals
Hand Hygiene Compliance (HHC) is paramount to patient safety and the reduction of hospital-acquired infections, but monitoring adherence to HHC policies is almost impossible. The US Institute for Healthcare Improvement estimates that health workers comply with recommended hand hygiene procedures less than 50% of the time. Versus Technology of Michigan, US has introduced a Hand Hygiene Compliance Solution that automatically measures hand hygiene compliance and non-compliance to help hospitals protect patient safety and meet regulatory and internal hand hygiene policies.
The system includes small, lightweight Infrared (IR) and RFID badges for health workers that communicate with similar IR-RFID tags placed on automated soap dispensers.
When a badge-wearing staff member approaches the soap dispenser, the tag on the dispenser reads the badge, records who is at the washbasin and when and where the activity is taking place. The health worker receives an audible acknowledgement that this HHC event has been captured. The event is recorded and available for reporting and quality improvement purposes.
The company says the system provides accurate, unbiased data for continual process improvement. The realtime alerts also give health workers the opportunity to self-correct, protecting themselves and patients.
‘It is very important to Versus Technology that we provide solutions that not only reduce the potential for hospital acquired infections, but also do so in a way that increases hospital staff efficiency,’ said Henry Tenarvitz, chief intellectual property officer of Versus. ‘At the same time, these systems must be priced at a level that most hospitals can afford. Our commitment to making compliance systems affordable has driven Versus to discover ways to leverage existing nurse call infrastructure to control installation costs.’ By adding compliance functionality to an installed nurse call system, hospitals can control deployment costs and, at the same time, increase staff efficiency, the company says.
Versus offers a complete suite of enterprise workflow and automation solutions, including patient, staff and asset tracking, bed management and enhancement of existing systems such as nurse call. www.versustech.com