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Abstract

Hospital Acquired Infections (HAI) caused by Multi-Drug Resistant Organisms (MDROs), which are mostly spread through the contaminated hands of healthcare employees, are on the rise worldwide. All hospitalized and critically ill patients are especially vulnerable to the infection rate of 7% and 30% respectively. The great majority of the literature offers convincing evidence that improved hand hygiene practices lead to a reduction of HAIs. Since 1980 organizations have tried to promote hand hygiene practices through awareness training, without any significant sustained improvement on compliance levels. Decades-long historic non-compliance level of <50% worldwide is the proof that things won´t get any better with the current strategy. From the operations management experience in other types of production systems, the compliance of any critical Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), for example, the use of flight take-off checklist used by pilots, is never left so optional and voluntary as it is done with hand hygiene in healthcare. Whenever there is a serious consequence for noncompliance, there are always control mechanisms to detect and warn non-complying individuals so that they slowly create the culture of compliance. Healthcare organizations have not put in place an effective control mechanism to detect individual non-compliance levels for the subsequent follow-up to form the right, hand-hygiene habit. In the absence of such systems, employees cannot be blamed. This is a systemic problem that needs a systemic solution. GovisystemTM provides an innovative solution: an individual compliance-level monitor using a patented intelligent dispenser network placed at different points of use. When a user places his/her hand in a dispenser to obtain the gel, the middle finger is guided to a fingerprint reader while almost instantaneously releasing the gel into his/her palm. The system records in real time the hand hygiene moments of all employees: who, when and at which dispenser. The system eliminates systemic issues through its LAVAGE formula: L-Location of geo-located dispensers at each point of use; A-Availability levels of gel in all dispensers are monitored in real time on the computer screen of the person responsible for replenishment; V-Validity of the gel is ensured through quality control; A-Amount of gel released to each user is personalized as fingerprint is correlated to hand size; G-Guidance to employees is made available through protocols; E- Evaluations of individual compliance levels that are monitored in real time on the supervisor´s computer screen and follow up until habits are formed.

Biography

E-mail: 50773rjk@comb.cat