Study: Hospitals' adoption of electronic hand hygiene systems could have sustained improvement

GOJO Industries, a leader in hand hygiene and skin health and inventors of PURELL- Hand Sanitizer, will present its scientific research study, "Impact of Electronic Monitoring and a Hand Hygiene Improvement Program on Compliance Rates" at the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) Conference, June 8-10, 2013.

Sarah Edmonds, M.S., senior clinical scientist at GOJO lead the study. The research was conducted on two units of an acute care facility in Fort Worth, Texas from June - October 2012 using GOJO SMARTLINKTM Activity Monitoring System. With the SMARTLINK technology, the data is collected and transmitted from the wireless technology and used by the infection preventionist to understand the actual number of hand hygiene opportunities compared to the actual dispenses of hand hygiene products. With data, the hospital can then investigate high and low compliance areas to learn from and provide the appropriate support to improve and sustain hand hygiene compliance.

Regarding the study, Edmonds said, "We were able to measure a significant increase in hand hygiene compliance over baseline during the intervention period and also observed a sustained improvement in compliance for approximately two months post-intervention. We are excited about working with infection preventionists where SMARTLINK installations are occurring to help them improve hand hygiene compliance rates at their facilities. It is important to note that the technology alone will not drive sustained change and there needs to be a whole systems approach, but the real-time, 24/7 metrics certainly help."

GOJO is working with many leading hospitals to implement GOJO SMARTLINK Hand Hygiene Solutions. With the installation, hospitals are provided a comprehensive set of products, dispensers, measurement tools, and services to improve clinical hand hygiene in pursuit of improved patient outcomes.

The importance and trend toward hand hygiene compliance is increasing due to the number of healthcare associated infections (HAI.) According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 5-10 percent of all hospitalized will get a HAI while in the hospital, which accounts to 1.7 million infections annually and 99,000 deaths. The CDC recommends keeping hands clean as one of the best ways to prevent the spread of infection and illness.1

Along with the study presentation and SMARTLINK demonstration at APIC 2013, GOJO is also sponsoring the Point of Care Hand Hygiene symposium on June 8, at 5:30 a.m. with presenters Julie Storr, B.N. and Claire Kilpatrick, R.N., independent consultants with the World Health Organization. Two contact hours of CE credits will be offered.