Clean hands matter

Shaking a hand. Taking a pulse. Changing a bandage. Touch is inherent to healthcare. That touch should bring healing, not an infection. Proventix is a technology company whose mission is to eliminate infections contracted by 1.7 million Americans each year through healthcare-associated touch.

“According to the World Health Organization, "Every day, 247 people die in the US as a result of an HAI. This is the equivalent of a 767 aircraft crashing every day or more than 90,000 deaths annually." Hospitals must move past existing hand hygiene policies”

Making the Touch Safe

One out of every 20 patients admitted to a U.S. hospital contracts a Healthcare-Associated Infection (HAI). Proventix, believing that the 1 out of 20 is 1 infection too many, brings the focus to hand hygiene. Hand hygiene is widely accepted as the most effective means of reducing HAI occurrence; yet, most studies show that hand hygiene compliance rates range anywhere from 40 to 70 percent.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC), The Joint Commission for the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations and other healthcare-related groups emphasize effective hand hygiene as the single most important factor to reduce infection rates. However, in a survey of more than 250 infection prevention professionals, 92 percent of them said they find it difficult to maintain hand hygiene compliance when it is not actively monitored.

Currently, the key barrier to improving hand hygiene practices and compliance rates is the inability to track and measure compliance across a hospital.

Proventix developed its lead healthcare product, nGage, as a way to motivate workers to seek hand hygiene opportunities. Workers, while washing their hands, are rewarded with important professional, performance and user-defined information through an active communication display unit. RFID tags monitor compliance and create data regarding compliance for hospital executives and managers.

The nGage system is built around the idea that data-driven technology infrastructure is only as good as the quality and usability of the information and the worker's desire to interact with it. nGage is an expandable communications and device system that improves compliance and creates opportunities for efficiencies. The system also offers a communication medium for different types of healthcare-related information. This includes a patient's vitals, laboratory reports and healthcare worker-specific messaging.

Cutting the Cost

Proventix seeks to eliminate the unnecessary human and economic costs of infectious diseases in healthcare. We protect patients, customers, and workers. We help reduce the human and economic losses associated with illness.

Hospitals face losses of millions of dollars related to HAI patient care as state and federal governments, private insurers and employers become increasingly reluctant to pay the cost of treating preventable HAIs. The Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) and private insurers are already reducing payments. Conservative estimates suggest an average economic incremental cost of nearly $14,000 to treat each HAI patient. This cost alone adds $24 billion to aggregate health care costs in this country.

Patients with an increasing awareness of the importance of hand hygiene also care about infection rates. In an American Journal of Medical Quality study ranking factors influencing hospital choice, 85 percent of the respondents indicated low infection rates as very important, while 93 percent responded that knowing infection rates for a hospital or doctor would influence selections.

Legislative and regulatory initiatives are also contributing to a growing demand for new approaches to preventing unnecessary infections.

Proventix provides the tools and services needed for quality compliance monitoring, active point of care communication, and successful behavior modification.