Tracking Hand Hygiene - Is Technology the Answer?

Hand hygiene is an essential part of any infection prevention program. However, monitoring for hand hygiene compliance and making healthcare workers change their behavior presents challenges.

Technological solutions are available that help to monitor healthcare worker hand hygiene compliance rates. ECRI’s team of experts have evaluated several of these solutions and reviewed the evidence for their effectiveness. Join us as they discuss their findings on:

• The importance of hand hygiene - hand hygiene events, opportunities (e.g., WHO 5 Moments), and compliance
• Hand hygiene as an integral part of an Infection Control Program
• Current technologies to monitor hand hygiene compliance
• Human factors and inclusion in your workflow
• How the solutions work and what we look for in our Evaluations

Jason Launders

Director of Operations, Device Evaluation, ECRI
Jason Launders has been at ECRI since 1998 and is currently the Director of Operations for the Device Evaluation group. Jason’s primary responsibility is managing ECRI’s laboratory based evaluations of medical technologies. Jason has an MSc in Medical Physics and spent his earlier time at ECRI evaluating a wide range of diagnostic imaging technology, such as: CT, MRI, PACS, and Digital Radiography. Today, he is responsible for developing the content of evaluations to ensure they meet the needs of our members.

Jim Davis, MSN, RN, CCRN-K, HEM, CIC, FAPIC

Senior Infection Prevention & Patient Safety Analysts/Consultant, ECRI
Jim Davis has 25-plus years of nursing experience spanning long-term care, adult critical care, clinical decision support, education, nurse management, and infection prevention. He has designed version 2 of the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority’s long-term care healthcare acquired infection reporting system and analytics programs and has provided educational programs about infection control topics for risk management groups and patient safety organizations.

Amanda Sivek, PhD

Principal Project Officer 1, Device Evaluation, ECRI
Amanda Sivek, PhD, is a Senior Project Engineer in the Health Device group at ECRI. Since joining ECRI in August 2015, she has worked on topics relevant to the field of infection prevention and control, including the completion of laboratory evaluations of disinfection caps for needle free intravenous connectors, countertop ultraviolet disinfection systems for mobile devices, hand hygiene compliance monitoring systems, and hand hygiene observation apps. Dr. Sivek completed her PhD in Bioengineering and is an expert in in vitro and in vivo use of ventricular-assist devices (VADs); hemodynamics; and flow-induced blood damage. During her graduate studies, Dr. Sivek also worked as an Artificial Heart Biomedical Engineer at UPMC Presbyterian and Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh assisting in the care of adult and pediatric patients implanted with VADs.

Polly Tremoulet, PhD

Human Factors Scientist, ECRI
Dr. Patrice Tremoulet is a Human Factors Scientist with considerable experience designing, building, and assessing advanced user interfaces for complex, data-intensive systems. She specializes in research that uses information about human behavior, abilities and limitations to design and evaluate tools that improve safety, productivity, and/or health. Dr Tremoulet earned a BSE in Operations Research from Princeton University, an MS in Operations Research from Stanford University, and a PhD in Cognitive Psychology from Rutgers University. She currently serves as a human factors consultant for the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and ECRI Institute and as an Associate Professor of Human Factors Psychology at Rowan University.