A reliable handwash detector for automated hand hygiene documentation and reminder system in hospitals

Abstract

This paper presents a design of a reliable hand wash detector for the Automated Hand Hygiene Documentation and Reminder System (AHHDRS). AHHDRS helps to reduce number of healthcare associated infections mainly caused by lack of hand hygiene among health care providers. This is a social problem and costs about $35.7 - $45 billion annually in direct medical costs to the U.S hospitals and a lot more worldwide. AHHDRS works by creating ultrasonic hotspots with unique Identifier which gets tagged into the clinicians badge ultrasonically for a predefined movement between Wash zone/Bed zone hot spots for hand hygiene compliance. Accumulated hand hygiene compliance data pulled out by the Wireless Reader in 915MHz RF link and pushed to the AHHDRS server through Wi-Fi link. Proposed hand wash detector can complement or replace the existing vibration based wash sensor in the AHHDRS. Existing hand wash sensor is based on vibrations and leads to lot of false positives for the hand hygiene compliance. The three pronged detection system proposed in the hand wash sensor enables the reliable detection of hand wash and hence the hand hygiene compliance. It identifies hand wash by the clinicians in hospitals based on 1) Measuring pressure applied to the wash dispenser’s plunger by a pressure sensor 2) Measuring Infrared emitted by the presence of human hand in the vicinity of the wash dispenser by a Passive Infrared sensor. 3) Detecting alcohol residue in the user’s hand after the hand wash. Combination of the three parameters enables the wash sensor to reliably identify the hand wash event and hence the hand hygiene compliance.