Two Israeli companies have formed a strategic partnership to cut patient infection rates in hospitals worldwide. The systems developed by Hyginex and Atomation is being deployed in more than 10 hospitals in 2016 in the US, Switzerland and Israel. Recent studies show dramatic improvement in hospitals that started using the technology; hand hygiene events doubled, average hand cleaning duration increased from 7 seconds to 24 seconds and adoption by workers was fast and easy.
Avoiding hand washing can spread dangerous infections and in hospitals the consequences can be lethal. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1 in 25 patients will catch at least 1 infection in a hospital. This accumulates to more than 1 million healthcare acquired infections per year, resulting in more the 100,000 deaths, costing hospitals almost $40 billion annually solely in the US.
Despite these disturbing numbers, compliance rates for hand washing in American hospitals are only 40%. Using IoT technology, Hyginex and Atomation are raising hand hygiene compliance, and reducing patient infection rates.
Hospital workers are flooded with responsibilities and are unable to keep track of their hand hygiene. The Hyginex wearable wristband captures data for all hand hygiene events. This data is used for management supervision and for real time intervention. Hyginex wristbands vibrate to remind staff when they forget to clean their hands before and after patient contact and captures data on hand cleaning duration. Studies show that as hand hygiene duration increases, bacteria count on hands decreases.
The technology is based on Atomation's IoT platform. The wristband has a BLE unit that communicates with a mobile app enabling goal setting and generation of hand hygiene reports. In addition, sensors are attached to any soap and/or alcohol dispenser and communicate with the BLE when a hand hygiene event begins. In order to enable the vibration that may occur prior to patient contact, beacons are located in hospital rooms and identify the hand hygiene status. The ubiquitous system is raising awareness without interfering with everyday tasks and requires minimum effort and lets workers be monitored as naturally as possible.
Atomation was founded in 2014 by CEO Guy Weitzman and CTO Eran Keshet. The company recently signed agreements in the agriculture, consumer electronics and healthcare fields. Aomation's vision is to connect as many objects in the physical world to the cloud.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on April 7, 2016
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