PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Electronic monitoring systems can improve health care hand hygiene compliance

Study conducted by GOJO and independent researchers showed a 92 percent hand hygiene improvement with SMARTLINK Activity Monitoring System

2013-07-18
(Press-News.org) AKRON, Ohio, (July 18, 2013) – GOJO Industries, a leader in hand hygiene and skin health and inventors of PURELL® Hand Sanitizer, conducted an independent research study at the John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth, Texas to determine the impact on hand hygiene compliance rates when the hospital hand hygiene program included an electronic compliance activity monitoring system. The compliance technology system used in the study was the GOJO SMARTLINK Activity Monitoring System.

Results of the study were presented at the APIC 2013 Conference. The authors concluded that during the study period of June to September 2012, there was a 92 percent increase in hand hygiene compliance rates (from 16.5 percent at baseline to 31.7 percent) when an electronic monitoring system was included in a hand hygiene program. During the post-study period the rate decreased to 25.8 percent still significantly above baseline.

"Through the study, we found that implementation of an electronic hand hygiene compliance monitoring system as part of a clinical hand hygiene program can significantly increase hand hygiene compliance," said Sarah Edmonds, GOJO scientist and lead author of the study. "We also are aware that additional data is needed to better understand the impact of electronic compliance monitoring programs on clinical outcomes, such as infection rates."

During the study, the GOJO SMARTLINK Activity Monitoring System was installed to monitor all patient room entries and exits and all hand hygiene events from GOJO touch-free soap or PURELL® hand sanitizer dispensers. Compliance was measured as number of events in contrast to number of opportunities, and included the entire community, not only healthcare workers. The study duration was three months during which a comprehensive hand hygiene program for healthcare workers, patient and visitors was implemented. Additional education was established including the development of a hand hygiene improvement goal, leadership support and feedback opportunities for the staff.

Other products reviewed at APIC included i-Scrub, a free application for Apple devices used to electronically collect observed hand hygiene events and SMARTWATCH™, a free web-based tool that allows users to automatically upload, visualize and analyze their data straight from i-Scrub.

"SMARTWATCH was developed by the University of Iowa Computational and Epidemiology department with support from GOJO," said Rich Clark, Operations Director, GOJO Compliance Business. "SMARTWATCH is a huge time-saver. It automatically collects and organizes observational data which allows infection preventionists to spend time coaching their staff rather than manually creating spreadsheets and reports."

Hand hygiene is the most important intervention for preventing the spread of disease. Use of electronic monitoring can be a valuable tool for educating healthcare workers on their hand hygiene performance, and tracking hand hygiene performance improvements. GOJO Industries has installed SMARTLINK™ Activity Monitoring System at Texas Scottish Rite Hospital, JPS Health Network and many other hospital systems and is actively preparing for compliance installation at other hospital systems throughout the country. Through the SMARTLINK systems installed at hospitals, GOJO is approaching two million hand hygiene events recorded, which is based on the average rate of events recorded every five seconds.



INFORMATION:

About GOJO

GOJO Industries, Inc. (http://www.gojo.com) is the inventor of PURELL® Advanced Instant Hand Sanitizer and the leading global producer and marketer of skin health and hygiene solutions for away-from-home settings. The broad GOJO product portfolio includes hand cleaning, handwashing, hand sanitizing and skin care formulas under the GOJO®, PURELL® and PROVON® brand names. GOJO formulations use the latest advances in the science of skin care and sustainability. GOJO is known for state-of-the-art dispensing technology, engineered with attention to design, sustainability and functionality. GOJO programs promote healthy behaviors for hand hygiene, skin care and compliance in critical environments. GOJO is a privately held corporation headquartered in Akron, with offices in the United Kingdom, France, Australia, Japan and Brazil.



ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

An important discovery at the Montreal Heart Institute: A new approach to treat the most common heart valve disease in Western countries

2013-07-18
Montreal, Canada, July 18, 2013 – A study conducted by the team of Dr. Jean-Claude Tardif, Director of the Research Centre at the Montreal Heart Institute (MHI), has led to the discovery of a new approach to treat aortic valve stenosis through the administration of a compound that prevents valve deterioration and can even reverse the progression of the disease. A condition that is characterized by a narrowing of the aortic valve and that affects approximately 150,000 Canadians , aortic valve stenosis is the most common type of heart valve disease in Western countries. The ...

An effective initial polytherapy for infantile spasms

2013-07-18
Adrenocorticotropic hormone is recommended worldwide as an initial therapy for infantile spasms. However, infantile spasms in about 50% of children cannot be fully controlled by adrenocorticotropic hormone monotherapy, seizures recur in 33% of patients who initially respond to adrenocorticotropic hormone monotherapy, and side effects are relatively common during adrenocorticotropic hormone treatment. Feiyong Jia and colleagues from the First Hospital of Jilin University used combined therapy with adrenocorticotropic hormone, topiramate, vitamin B6, and immunoglobulin in ...

Abnormal activation of the occipital lobes in major depressive disorder patients

2013-07-18
A recent study published in the Neural Regeneration Research (Vol. 8, No. 18, 2013) combined cognition tasks and functional MRI, and designed multiple repeated event-related tasks; additionally, using the International Affective Picture System-based event-related tasks, this study investigated brain functional characteristics of major depressive disorder patients exhibiting, negative bias brain imaging changes and cognitive dysfunction, as well as their relationship based on biased quantitative data. Results show that (1) the number of error responses was calculated to ...

New evidence for warm-blooded dinosaurs

2013-07-18
University of Adelaide research has shown new evidence that dinosaurs were warm-blooded like birds and mammals, not cold-blooded like reptiles as commonly believed. In a paper published in PLoS ONE, Professor Roger Seymour of the University's School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, argues that cold-blooded dinosaurs would not have had the required muscular power to prey on other animals and dominate over mammals as they did throughout the Mesozoic period. "Much can be learned about dinosaurs from fossils but the question of whether dinosaurs were warm-blooded or ...

Singing helps students tune into a foreign language, study shows

2013-07-18
Singing in a foreign language can significantly improve learning how to speak it, according to a new study. Adults who listened to short Hungarian phrases and then sang them back performed better than those who spoke the phrases, researchers found. People who sang the phrases back also fared better than those who repeated the phrases by speaking them rhythmically. Three randomly assigned groups of twenty adults took part in a series of five tests as part of a study conducted by researchers at the University of Edinburgh's Reid School of Music. The singing group ...

Bacteriophages battle superbugs

2013-07-18
IFR microbiologists are reinvigorating a way of battling C. difficile infections that they hope will help overcome the growing problem of antibiotic resistant superbugs in hospitals. Our digestive system is home to trillions of bacteria, which are crucial to our overall health, through helping us digest food and battling potentially harmful microbes. When we take antibiotics to combat bacterial infections these beneficial bacteria can also be killed off, leaving us at risk of infection by harmful bacteria. Clostridium difficile is one of these harmful bacteria and is the ...

Computing toxic chemicals

2013-07-18
A new computational method for working out in advance whether a chemical will be toxic will be reporting in a forthcoming issue of the International Journal of Data Mining and Bioinformatics. There is increasing pressure on the chemical and related industries to ensure that their products comply with increasing numbers of safety regulations. Providing regulators, intermediary users and consumers with all the necessary information to allow them to make informed choices with respect to use, disposal, recycling, environmental issues and human health issues is critical. Now, ...

Optimal irradiation dose and time window of local X-ray for spinal cord injury

2013-07-18
The glial scar is the main inhibitor of axon regeneration and functional recovery in the central nervous system. Appropriate dose X-ray irradiation has been shown to inhibit the formation of glial cells, thereby promoting axonal regeneration. In addition, X-rays militate against the death and degeneration of neurons, and improve the recovery of locomotor function following spinal cord injury. However, the optimal treatment time window and dose of X-irradiation for spinal cord injury is still unknown. Prof. Shiqing Feng and colleagues from Tianjin Medical University have ...

Early detection and treatment of Alzheimer's disease prevents psychological and behavioral symptoms

2013-07-18
Persons with Alzheimer's disease are able to manage their everyday activities longer and they suffer from less psychological and behavioural symptoms if the diagnosis is made and treatment begun at a very early phase of the disease, indicates a recent study conducted at the University of Eastern Finland. The study followed persons with Alzheimer's disease over a course of three years. The study participants were diagnosed either at the very mild or mild phase of the disease and treated within the standard healthcare system. According to the study, persons with a very ...

Irish potato famine-causing pathogen even more virulent now

2013-07-18
The plant pathogen that caused the Irish potato famine in the 1840s lives on today with a different genetic blueprint and an even larger arsenal of weaponry to harm and kill plants. In a study published in the journal Nature Communications, North Carolina State University plant pathologist Jean Ristaino and colleagues Mike Martin and Tom Gilbert from the University of Copenhagen compared the genomes, or sets of all genes, of five 19th century strains of the Phytophthora infestans pathogen with modern strains of the pathogen, which still wreaks havoc on potatoes and tomatoes. The ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Thirty-year mystery of dissonance in the “ringing” of black holes explained

Less intensive works best for agricultural soil

Arctic rivers project receives “national champion” designation from frontiers foundation

Computational biology paves the way for new ALS tests

Study offers new hope for babies born with opioid withdrawal syndrome

UT, Volkswagen Group of America celebrate research partnership

New Medicare program could dramatically improve affordability for cancer drugs – if patients enroll

Are ‘zombie’ skin cells harmful or helpful? The answer may be in their shapes

University of Cincinnati Cancer Center presents research at AACR 2025

Head and neck, breast, lung and survivorship studies headline Dana-Farber research at AACR Annual Meeting 2025

AACR: Researchers share promising results from MD Anderson clinical trials

New research explains why our waistlines expand in middle age

Advancements in muon detection: Taishan Antineutrino Observatory's innovative top veto tracker

Chips off the old block

Microvascular decompression combined with nerve combing for atypical trigeminal neuralgia

Cutting the complexity from digital carpentry

Lung immune cell type “quietly” controls inflammation in COVID-19

Fiscal impact of expanded Medicare coverage for GLP-1 receptor agonists to treat obesity

State and sociodemographic trends in US cigarette smoking with future projections

Young adults drive historic decline in smoking

NFCR congratulates Dr. Robert C. Bast, Jr. on receiving the AACR-Daniel D. Von Hoff Award for Outstanding Contributions to Education and Training in Cancer Research

Chimpanzee stem cells offer new insights into early embryonic development

This injected protein-like polymer helps tissues heal after a heart attack

FlexTech inaugural issue launches, pioneering interdisciplinary innovation in flexible technology

In Down syndrome mice, 40Hz light and sound improve cognition, neurogenesis, connectivity

Methyl eugenol: potential to inhibit oxidative stress, address related diseases, and its toxicological effects

A vascularized multilayer chip reveals shear stress-induced angiogenesis in diverse fluid conditions

AI helps unravel a cause of Alzheimer's disease and identify a therapeutic candidate

Coalition of Autism Scientists critiques US Department of Health and Human Services Autism Research Initiative

Structure dictates effectiveness, safety in nanomedicine

[Press-News.org] Electronic monitoring systems can improve health care hand hygiene compliance
Study conducted by GOJO and independent researchers showed a 92 percent hand hygiene improvement with SMARTLINK Activity Monitoring System