A NEW ELECTRONIC monitor is being developed that can help hospital staff clean their hands properly and reduce the spread of disease-causing bugs.
A sensor tracks the person's hand movements at the sink and provides feedback when industry-approved guidelines for hand hygiene have been met, according to Dr Gerard Lacey, a lecturer in the school computer science and statistics at Trinity College Dublin.
"You have to wash the back of your hands, your fingertips and so on, rather than a splash and go. It's almost pointless doing that because you don't get your hands clean," he explained.
The new monitor has been trained according to handwashing methods endorsed by the Strategy for the Control of Antimicrobial Resistance in Ireland (Sari) and recognises the correct steps or poses needed to complete the process and help reduce the spread of potentially harmful bacteria to patients.
"If you carry out the correct technique, which is six or seven steps, it counts how long you are spending washing your fingertips, your thumb, the palm of your hand and the back of your hand, and it makes sure you don't skip one of the steps," said Dr Lacey, adding that if the person carries out all steps a green light comes on.
"But it tries not to change anything that anybody is doing. All it does is provide a record that yes the hands have been washed according to the proper technique."
To avoid privacy issues the white-light camera monitors the sink area only, and the images are not recorded, he added: "[The information] goes straight into a processor and is reduced down to the number of seconds that someone has spent washing their hands in each of the different poses. It's not a 'big brother' scenario, the data is just sucked in and used."
In addition, the person washing their hands is not identified unless the system is set up to specifically request an identity card.
"We are making sure we are deploying it in a way that is useful to the people who are using it so we are working with hospitals and we are looking to work with the food industry. And we expect there will be different requirements for different environments," said Dr Lacey.
The system, which sits as an unobtrusive box near the sink, can also be used for training or refresher courses on handwashing for hospital staff, who may need to wash their hands up to 40 times a day, he added.
The monitor, which is expected to be on the market next year, has been successfully trialled at a hospital in the north-west and the researchers are also talking to hygiene managers in the food industry about using it to keep a record of handwashing, according to Dr Lacey.
