Hand hygiene then and now

The importance of hand washing has been known for the last 200 years. In 1843, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes (who is also the father of the U.S. Supreme Court Justice of the same name) believed that hand washing could prevent childbed fever. Holmes believed that the source of Childbed fever was passed to pregnant women by the presence of an infectious disease on the hands of doctors. Later in that same decade, Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis, who worked at a hospital in Vienna as an assistant in the maternity wards, observed that the mortality rate in a delivery room staffed by medical students was up to three times higher than in a second delivery room staffed by midwives. The medical students were coming to the delivery room from classes in the autopsy room. Semmelweis put forth that maybe the students were carrying an infection on their hands from their dissections to the expectant mothers. To combat this possibility, he ordered that all doctors and medical students wash their hands with a chlorinated solution before examining women in labor. The mortality rate in his maternity wards eventually dropped to less than one percent. This decade in history was a crossroads in the medical community regarding the importance, effectiveness and basic need of proper hand hygiene. We are at similar cross roads today in our societal effort to combat H1N1, Hospital or Healthcare Acquired Infections (HAIs) and a plethora of other nosocomial infections. Proper and effective Hand Hygiene is still the best and simplest method to combat the transfer of infection.

The transmission of pathogens to patients from the dirty hands of healthcare providers was even addressed by Louis Pasteur, who attended a seminar at the Academy of Medicine in Paris in 1879. The speaker giving the seminar casted doubt on the spread of disease through the hands. Pasteur shouted at the speaker: "The thing that kills women with [Childbirth fever]...is you doctors that carry deadly microbes from sick women to healthy ones." And as recently as 1910, Josephine Baker, M.D. began teaching hygiene to child care providers in New York. Thirty physicians sent a petition to the Mayor protesting that "it was ruining medical practice by... keeping babies well."

According to the United States Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), "Hand washing is the single most important means of preventing the spread of infection."

There are many new technologies and products that are entering or are already established in the Hand Hygiene market. Yet, recent studies and reports indicate that the lack of or improper hand-washing still contributes significantly to disease transmission. Nary a newspaper is printed anywhere in the world today without it containing at least one story about H1N1, seasonal flu or MRSA. Everyone runs the risk of contracting hand-transmitted illnesses; fully one-third of our population is especially vulnerable, including pregnant women, children, the elderly, and those with weakened immune systems, with children being especially vulnerable to H1N1.

The world is now filled with alcohol-based sanitizers, antimicrobial soap, hands-free dispensers, personal hand sanitizers, RFID technology and a myriad of other technologies all tasked with making sure our collective hands are clean. One would think that hospitals would be at the forefront and lead the way to an all encompassing solution. However, an article in The New England Journal of Medicine, in 1992, discussed a hand-washing study in an intensive-care unit, where despite education and monitoring hand-washing rates were as low as 30% and never went above 48%! A better solution, or system, must be available to ensure that everyone who needs to wash their hands does so. A System that helps us to be healthier and safe from being infected by the very healthcare system we turn to for our care.

"An easy to use, non-invasive system that encourages personnel to comply with Federal and State regulations and a Facility's protocols regarding Hand Hygiene can and will greatly reduce the incidents of Healthcare Acquired Infections (HAIs) across the US and the world. This is exactly why we created the patented HandGiene System", commented HandGiene founder and inventor, Vincent Verdiramo. "We differ from other companies that attempt to offer a Hand Hygiene Compliance Monitoring Solution in that the HandGiene System works in all areas of a facility and our HandGiene Hand Cleanser Dispensers can dispense a variety of our proprietary soap and waterless hand sanitizers. Our backend systems are designed to integrate with existing legacy systems to facilitate rapid deployment in specific areas or throughout a facility. HandGiene's web-based software allows for administrators to look at specific employees, crews, stations, departments, shifts or an entire facility, or in the case of larger concerns an entire system of facilities or locations." The Company reports that preliminary feedback has been favorable and interest in the HandGiene System is growing rapidly.

HAIs are extremely detrimental and costly to the US population and economy. The U.S. Department of Labor has identified nearly 6 million licensed health care workers and support staff with each one representing a potential source of HAIs to the nearly 36 million people in the United States that were admitted to a hospital last year. The CDC reports that in 2007, there were nearly 1.25 million incidents of HAIs that resulted in more than 120,000 deaths or approximately one death every 4½ minutes. In very real terms, that is more deaths than Breast Cancer, HIV Aids and auto accidents in the U.S. combined.

We do not need another Pasteur to stand up and scream about how we are getting sick from our healthcare system, we need an Edison to develop and introduce a new system or method to ensure simple and effective compliance with established hand wash protocols. The world needs a simple, yet effective, non-invasive hand wash monitoring and accountability system readily available and deployed throughout the health care system. A Hand Hygiene System that provides real-time data to administrators for management and training of personnel. "Education is Key; But Monitoring with Accountability is the Answer."™