Robbinsdale, Minn.-based North Memorial Hospital is improving hand hygiene through a monitoring system that tracks about 100 oncology providers, MPR News reports.
Ecolab, which developed the hand sanitation monitoring system, offers hygiene, water and energy technologies.
"We can know just how nurses are doing or how physicians are doing," said Stephanie Swanson, manager of infection prevention at North Memorial. "So, you really get an opportunity to understand where you could improve."
Oncology ward staff wear badges that are electronically linked to hand sanitizer dispensers and beacons in patients' rooms.
The badges are about as big as a credit card and show whether the wearer's hands are clean. After staff members washes their hands, badges stay green for five minutes, but if providers treat one patient and move to the next patient without cleansing their hands, the badge puts out a warning.
Staff have been washing their hands 95 percent of the time overall, and physicians and nurses are embracing the system, viewing it as a welcome reminder to keep their hands clean, Ms. Swanson told MPR News.
The system also creates reports on individual performances. Some of the hospital's nurses have been perfect, even though they may have to sanitize their hands hundreds of times during a shift, Ms. Swanson said.
The Ecolab system is deployed at eight Florida and Colorado hospitals, and the company aims to expand it nationwide, with trials happening at hospitals in Ohio, New Mexico, Michigan, Virginia and West Virginia.