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:

Body illusion helps unlock memories – new study

Hormone replacement therapy may help restore immunity in menopausal women

North American ice sheets drove dramatic sea-level rise at the end of the last ice age

Programmable proteins use logic to improve targeted drug delivery

Fossil fuel companies control a mere 1% of renewable energy projects worldwide 

Early planting to avoid heat doesn’t match current spring wheat production

“Molecular bodyguard” helps infections persist

Japan’s first nationwide survey highlights gaps in patient engagement for allergy research

World’s first pig-to-human liver xenotransplant in a living recipient reported in the Journal of Hepatology

The Lancet: Tens of thousands of children aged under five suffering acute malnutrition in Gaza, recent estimates suggest

Prostate testing may not target those most likely to benefit, warn experts

Global analysis shows hidden damage from men’s alcohol use

DRI recognizes Ashley Cornish as the 2025 Peter B. Wagner Memorial Award Winner for Women in Atmospheric Sciences

Unlocking the blueprint for a powerful plant-based drug

Bringing modern science to vitamin biology: Isha Jain wins NIH Transformative Research Award

University of Houston scientists learn that rare bacterium ‘plays dead’ to survive

Introduced animals change how island plants spread, new global study finds

Mayo Clinic researchers discover ‘traffic controller’ protein that protects DNA, and may help kill cancer cells

Protein sidekick exhibits dual roles in stress granule assembly and disassembly

New hope for MS

Kennesaw State professor receives grant to study cancer origins

Pain and antidepressant drug combo linked to increased seizure risk in older adults

Cancer researchers shape new strategies for immunotherapy

Physical exercise can ‘train’ the immune system

Calm red brocket deer can learn to "Come" and other commands - but the flightiest, most restless individuals struggle

China, the world's largest tea producer, is predicted to experience increases in land suitable for tea-growing under climate change, with the overall range shifting northwards, per AI modeling study

Composing crews for Mars missions

Early humans butchered elephants using small tools and made big tools from their bones

1,000-year-old gut microbiome revealed for young man who lived in pre-Hispanic Mexico

Bears and pandas in captivity develop significantly different gut microbiomes compared to their wild counterparts, and giant pandas in particular have less diverse microbiomes than their wild counterp

[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