AeroScout Adds Hand Hygiene Compliance Monitoring To Its Patient & Staff Safety Solutions For Healthcare Organizations
AeroScout Integrates with SMARTLINK Series Dispensers from GOJO Industries to Help Improve Patient Safety and Reduce Hospital-Acquired Infection Rates
AeroScout, the leading provider of Healthcare Visibility Solutions, recently announced a new Hand Hygiene Compliance Monitoring solution designed specifically to help hospitals improve patient safety and regulatory compliance. The solution leverages AeroScout's Wi-Fi RFID technology integrated with SMARTLINK Series Dispensers from GOJO Industries, the leading global producer and marketer of skin health and hygiene solutions. The joint solution enables healthcare organizations to precisely and automatically monitor if, when and where staff members are sanitizing their hands with either soap and water or with waterless PURELL gel.
According to a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nosocomial, or hospital-acquired infections (HAI), can cause about 99,000 deaths per year in the United States. That is why improving hand hygiene is a significant focus for the global healthcare community and a top priority for organizations such as The Joint Commission, the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control, among others. Hospitals worldwide are required to measure hand washing of staff members to ensure that the organizations are meeting health standards and complying with regulations aimed at reducing hospital-acquired infections – where even small improvements can save lives and money.
Traditionally, hospitals have monitored hand hygiene through direct observation, surveys or measuring the use of dispensers. None of these methods have proven to be accurate or sustainable, and often consume excessive staff time while providing limited data or insight for making improvements.
AeroScout's existing Patient & Staff Safety solutions include applications for Patient Elopement, Patient Distress, Staff Duress and integration of its Real-Time Location System (RTLS) to Nurse Call Systems. Hospitals around the world are benefiting from these solutions to reduce the amount of safety incidents and improve overall quality of care. With the new Hand Hygiene Compliance Monitoring solution, hospitals can now better address important issues of infection control and hospital-acquired infections.
"New RTLS applications for monitoring hand hygiene compliance offer an exciting and important tool for dramatically improving the quality of patient care," said Dave Mackay, Healthcare Vice President at GOJO Industries. "We see AeroScout as one of the leading providers of hand hygiene compliance monitoring because of their expertise and market leadership in the healthcare industry."
AeroScout's Hand Hygiene Compliance Monitoring solution will be compatible with the GOJO SMARTLINK Series Dispensers, including PURELL hand sanitizer – the world's most recognized brand in skin care, PROVON hand soaps and PURELL Surgical Scrub, offering a complete portfolio to meet facilities' hand hygiene and measurement needs.
The joint solution is comprised of AeroScout Wi-Fi Tags worn by caregivers, embedded AeroScout Exciters in GOJO SMARTLINK Series Dispensers and the AeroScout MobileView Hand Hygiene application, which provides compliance reporting and alerting. As a caregiver enters or leaves a patient room and dispenses soap or gel, the embedded AeroScout Exciter in the dispenser is activated. This causes the tag worn by the caregiver to send a message over the hospital's Wi-Fi network identifying the caregiver, signaling the activation of the dispenser and recording the time and location.
Standard reports included with MobileView permit managers and infection control experts to monitor and manage hand hygiene compliance. These reports can be used on a periodic basis to identify current compliance rates and also to target opportunities for hand hygiene process improvement efforts.
"The Hand Hygiene Compliance Monitoring solution replaces the need for manual observation without changing or disrupting our customers' normal workflow," said Gabi Daniely, Vice President of Marketing and Product Strategy at AeroScout. "AeroScout is focused on continuing to enhance and expand its Patient & Staff Safety solutions because of the profound and immediate impact they can have on improving hospital safety while reducing costs at the same time."
About Healthcare Leadership
AeroScout is the leader in Healthcare Visibility Solutions, with over 400 hospitals worldwide using its solutions for Asset Tracking & Management, Temperature & Humidity Monitoring, Patient Flow and Patient & Staff Safety. AeroScout is proud to report that in a 2010 evaluation of healthcare providers conducted by KLAS , 100% of AeroScout customers that responded to the survey said they would purchase AeroScout again. Its Wi-Fi RFID solutions have also received the exclusive endorsement of the American Hospital Association. To see a demo of the Hand Hygiene Compliance Monitoring solution or to learn about AeroScout's full suite of Patient & Staff Safety offerings, please visit AeroScout in Booth #1531 at the HIMSS 2011 Conference in Orlando, Fla. from February 21 - 23, 2011. For more information, visit www.KLASresearch.com
About AeroScout
AeroScout is the market leader in Unified Asset Visibility solutions. Customers improve operational efficiency using AeroScout products that leverage standard Wi-Fi networks to track and manage the location, condition and status of mobile assets and people. AeroScout's global customer base consists of leading hospital, manufacturing and logistics organizations, including many of the Fortune 500. The company invented the first Wi-Fi-based Active RFID tag, and today is widely recognized as leading the market in number of deployments and tags shipped. Headquartered in Redwood City, California, AeroScout has offices in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Australia and Latin America. For more information, visit www.aeroscout.com.
SOURCE: AeroScout