The awareness for the importance of hand disinfection has been increased in recent times. Professor Axel Kramer already published that up to 90% of all germs are transmitted via our hands in 2006.
A novel project with an interactive feedback system has been started at the BDH-Klinik Greifswald recently. Medical director Dr. Torsten Stein appreciates the pilot project in his hospital:
„The hand disinfection has to be a constant companion in the daily work routine. We are happy that we can be the pioneer for the use of this new technology. The employees should be continuously supported with their hand hygiene.“
The mentioned system has been developed by GWA Hygiene from Stralsund. Existing dispensers are upgraded with a sensor. Consequently, the usage of dispensers can be automatically monitored. In addition to that, health care workers get a badge. If a doctor or nurse enters the patient zone without a hand disinfection before he or she gets an alert via the badge. Managing director Tobias Gebhardt explains the motivation behind this product development:
“Hospital staff usually has dynamic working hours. As a consequence, hand disinfection can be partly neglected. We want to support the prevention of that. Our system shall become the digital assistant for infection control.”
The job of infection control teams is often characterized by time-consuming tasks. However, hygiene professionals are not only demanded in the current situation. The specialists in hygiene and environmental medicine is the most demanded medical specialist in Germany. It can be assumed that the future work in hygiene and infection prevention requires more technical support. The project at the BDH-Klinik Greifswald can be a milestone for that.
Prof. Axel Kramer provides scientific support to the project:
“Conventional measures to increase the hand hygiene compliance have a lack of sustainability. We expect new insights and a significant contribution to patient and hospital staff safety with this novel approach.”
GWA Hygiene has been established in 2015 and is now looking forward to this promising regional cooperation. It is a great example how digitization and health care can work together. The project is funded by the Federal Ministry for Education, Research and Technology.