Background

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Hand hygiene (HH) compliance has been a long-standing issue on a worldwide (average 50%) and national level (average 77.7%).

Non-compliance on HH can lead to hospital acquired infections which may result in death, lengthened stay in hospitals and increased treatment costs.

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A project team was formed with Dr Samuel Chew (Geriatrician), NC Meng Qiu Sha (Infection Control), Ravi Madhavan (Fusionova Technologies), Gary Semeniano (OIS) and Syahid Hassan (OIS) in Jun 2016.

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The goal of this project is to develop a prototype that serves as a proof of concept to demonstrate the ability to detect missed hand hygiene moments at before and after touching the patient, and to provide a timely alert to the HCW so that he can perform HH.  

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The Solution

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3 scenarios were tested:

1. HCW did not clean hands before and after touching Patient

2. HCW forgot to clean hands but was alerted as he was about to touch Patient.       

He then performs hand rub before and after touching Patient

3. HCW makes no contact with Patient

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Summary of Capabilities Established 

• Use of Kinect Sensor to detect when a HCW entering or leaving the patient zone

• Use of Kinect Sensor to detect when a HCW is going to touch or has already touched a patient

• Use of Kinect Sensor to detect when a HCW is using the hand rub at the end of patient’s bedside (Currently based on position based sensing)

• Provide a timely audio alert (1 X bird chirp) to the HCW to perform hand rub before touching the patient if he hasn’t done so

• Provide a timely audio alert (2 X bird chirp) to the HCW to perform hand rub before leaving patient zone if he hasn’t done so