GOJO USA: Electronic Monitoring Systems: FAQ

How Does PURELL SMARTLINK™ Solutions Meet the Criteria of a Reliable, Accurate and Efficient Measurement System?

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What is Electronic Compliance Monitoring?

Electronic compliance monitoring refers to technology that measures and reports hand hygiene performance via unbiased and automated reporting 24 hours a day / 7 days a week.

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What is "Compliance Under Observation"?

Infection preventionists are aware that direct observation has shortcomings in accuracy and have begun to use this term to refer to their observation metrics as a way of disclaiming that it may not be representative of actual hospital hand hygiene compliance performance.

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Why is Electronic Monitoring so Important?

Industry data indicate a clear and compelling clinical need and business case for utilizing electronic monitoring technology to improve hand hygiene compliance:

- 722,000 infections reported each year¹

- Resulting in 75,000 deaths each year, attributable to HAI’s¹

- 1 out of every 20 hospitalized patients will contract an HAI¹

- Annual attributable cost of HAI’s is $20-40 billion dollars²

- Represent a major threat to patient safety³

- Hand Hygiene Compliance rates in the U.S. is less than 50%⁴

- Growing concern about the frequency of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) has made hand hygiene an increasingly important topic for hospital administrators. And, current methods of measuring hand hygiene compliance do not accurately reflect performance.

1 http://www.cdc.gov/HAI/surveillance/index.html, with reference to full report (CDC HAI Prevalence Survey, Magill SS, Edwards JR, Bamberg W, et al. Multistate Point-Prevalence Survey of Health Care - Associated Infections. External Web Site Icon N Engl J Med 2014;370:1198-208.)
2 Scott, Douglas. The Direct Medical costs of Healthcare-Associated Infections in U.S. Hospitals and the Benefits of Prevention. Center for Infectious Diseases Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. March 2009
3 Ted Pincock RN, CIC , Paul Bernstein RN, CIC, Shawn Warthman MBA, Elizabeth Holst BA Bundling hand hygiene interventions and measurement to decrease health care associated infections. American Journal of Infection Control 40 (2012) S18-S27
4 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Guideline for Hand Hygiene in Health-Care Settings: Recommendations of the Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee and the HICPAC/SHEA/APIC/IDSA Hand Hygiene Task Force. MMWR 2002;51(No. RR-16):[22].

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Can Hand Hygiene be Accurately Measured?