The Hand-in-Scan mission is to effectively reduce nosocomial infections through introducing objective monitoring of hand hygiene performance.

What they do
The Hungarian team and its international partners develop, validate and commercialize a hand hygiene system—named Hand-in-Scan—for the direct and objective evaluation and control of hand washing. The original idea—to use a non-invasive UV-marked commercial alcoholic hand rub—leave the medical hand washing workflow intact, and digital imaging and image processing was introduced to objectively determine the effectiveness of one’s hand washing technique. Images are taken in the prototype box that gives repeatable and immediate measurement of hand washing quality, based on the UV traces of the solution. The Budapest University of Technology and Economics’ (BME) spin-off company, together with the Semmelweis University and the Austrian Center for Medical Innovation and Technology (ACMIT) had been working on the system for two years, and now acquiring Venture Capital investment for conquering the international market.

How it works
The end-users of the product are primarily healthcare workers (including surgeons, nurses, and even visitors). Having their strong support and cooperation is a key factor to our success. Therefore the Hungarian team and its international partners created a neutral measurement environment that would not interfere with their daily routine: measurements do not take more than a few seconds per occasion.

The employed workflow is the following:

  • Hand washing is performed with the UV-marked hand rub mix.
  • The palmar and the dorsal sides of the hand are scanned one after the other.
  • Result is displayed on the screen: it highlights clean versus dirty areas, and indicates an overall score for the hand washing quality.
  • Reporting to hospital management is performed in the background.

 

Feedback
With their immediate user feedback the Hungarian team and its international partners aim to address the possible problem MDs would have with being controlled: viewing their improving results in technique, providing them feedback on decreasing HAI numbers would help them understand the importance of proper hand hygiene. It has been shown that hospital workers are in general willing to comply well with hand hygiene requirements, once they understand the importance of it.

Interested?
Clariton Kft.
Bartók Béla út 57. 4/4
Budapest
H-1114, Hungary
info@handinscan.com

Source and read more: Hand-in-Scan