GB2446871A

GB2446871A - Method and system for improving hand cleanliness

Info

Publication number: GB2446871A
Application number: GB0703438A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Michael Braddock
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 2007-02-22
Filing date: 2007-02-22
Publication date: 2008-08-27
Also published as: GB0703438D0

Abstract

A method for enforcing use of a hygiene procedure, e.g. hand-washing, comprises restricting movement of personnel by detecting a condition indicating that a hygiene procedure has not been carried out, or by not detecting a condition indicating that a hygiene procedure has been carried out, and actuating a movement restricting condition accordingly. The movement restriction may comprise the locking, or failing to unlock, of an exit. Detection of use of hygiene equipment may be sent to an ID card, preferably containing RFID technology, held by the user which may then be used to grant the user unrestricted movement, i.e. to unlock the exit. To promote further hygiene, the ID card may contain an antibacterial agent. The locking mechanism may also comprise an artificial 'nose', wherein the door is unlocked if a tracer agent added to the handwash is detected on a users hands.

Description

Preventing Spread of Infection This invention relates to preventing the

spread of infection, especially in hospitals and like institutions. Infections that are acquired in hospital are known, not surprisingly, as 1-lospital Acquired [nfections, or HAIs, and are responsible in the United Kingdom for about 5000 deaths annually.

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureas (MRSA) is a strain of the Staphylococcus aureas bacterium that has developed resistance to antibiotics. It has a high morbidity, and is a problem in hospitals, where it can spread rapidly.

In 2004, the National Health Service launched a Clean Your Hands' campaign to tackle the MRSA problem. Wards are required to ensure that alcohol-based hand rubs are placed near to beds -alcohol has been shown to be effective against the bacterium.

There is considerable evidence, however, to suggest that the campaign has not been very effective, and that nurses and other hospital workers are neglecting to take the simple measure of frequent hand washing.

Another problem infection is c-dif, or clostridium difficile. This, too, is resistant to antibiotics, and becomes a problem during antibiotics treatment for other ailments, which kill off bacteria that ordinarily keep c-dif under control. It is spread by the fecal-oral route and infection is controlled by routine hygiene, including, importantly, hand washing.

The present invention provides means to ensure that members of staff and others such as visitors wash their hands, using a prescribed alcohol-based or other effective wash, and help prevent the spread of MRSA and other infections.

The invention comprises a method for enforcing use of a hygiene procedure comprising restricting movement of personnel by detecting a condition indicating that a hygiene procedure has not been carried out, or by not detecting a condition indicating that a hygiene procedure has been carried out, and actuating a movement restricting condition accordingly.

The hygiene procedure may comprise hand washing.

The movement restricting condition may comprise locking, or failing to unlock, an exit -a gate or door, for example -out from an at-risk environment or into a clean environment. Or it may involve simply the raising of an alarm condition, alerting personnel, and others, to the non-compliance.

Hand washing may be detected by detecting use of hand washing equipment or activity.

Detection of use of hand washing equipment, which may involve a sensor, for example, on a handwash dispenser, may be flagged to an ID card or pass that incorporates an RFID chip. A restricted portal may then have an RFID reader that allows passage only if the handwashing operation has been flagged to the RFID chip.

An RFID chip may have multiple read/write registers. A handwash dispenser may, on use, actuate a read-write action that inter alia writes to one register a code indicating thai.

the dispenser has been used and the time and date of use. l'he pass thereby provided may be time-limited, to guard against the possibility that the hand wash operation took place too long before passing through the portal to be valid. When passing through the portal, as permitted by the pass code, the portal read/write equipment can erase the pass code, clearing the register space for the next such code.

if the RFID chip is loaded with personal information, it may be used to track personnel movements through a hospital, details being recorded in a database. Such records may serve to trace sources of infection break-outs, which may be of use in preventing further break-outs.

RFID is perhaps the most convenient, and almost certainly the most versatile technology available at present to use for the purposes of the invention, and it has the advantage that it need not be handled -the range of the RFID aerial can be selected such that it may be read while in the carrier's pocket or worn around the neck.

Other technologies could also be used, however, and might have their own advantages or might be less costly to install and maintain. A card, for example, with a magnetic strip, or a smart card could carry out many of the same operations as might be performed using RFID technology, but would require insertion into a read/writc slot, whereas RFID technology would involve only remote, and automatic, reading.

Where an ID card or pass requires handling, rather than merely to be carried about the person to be read remotely, there is a risk that the card or pass would itself become a disease vector. This risk can be reduced or eliminated if the card or pass is loaded with an antibacterial compound such as Microban. Indeed, all ID cards and passes that could pick up bacteria and transfer the same to the cards or passes of other personnel by having to be placed in read slots, might with great advantage be loaded with a Microban-type compound. whether or not they are used in connection with the present invention. Such use of Microban-type compound appears not to have been suggested before, and is claimed herein as an invention in its own right.

Detection of hand washing, however, could involve detection of traces of an alcohol or other wash. A door-open control may require manual contact, or perhaps just proximity.

A sensor, such as a semiconducting polymer array, may be trained' using a neural net, to identify alcohol vapour, or perhaps, on second thoughts, a vapour from some other volatile in the handwash, which would have limited dwell time on the hand. Another detection technology is passive infra red (PIR) technology, where motion of the hands below a dispenser is detected. These measures would not involve ID cards or passes, and might be easier to implement in many circumstances.

An exemplary method for enforcing use of a hygiene procedure, and apparatus for use in connection with the same will now be describer with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which: Figure 1 is a diagrammatic illustration of an RFID-based arrangement at a handwash station; Figure 2 is a diagrammatic illustration of an exit portal controlled by an arrangement like that of Figure 1; and Figure 3 is a diagrammatic illustration of a vapour detecting arrangement.

The drawings illustrate methods for enforcing use of a hygiene procedure, comprising restricting movement of personnel by detecting a condition indicating that a hygiene procedure has not been carried out. or by not detecting a condition indicating that a hygiene procedure has been carried out, and actuating a movement restricting condition accordingly.

The hygiene procedure illustrated comprises hand washing.

The movement restricting condition comprises locking, or failing to unlock, an exit 21 -a gate or door, for example -out from an at-risk environment 22 or into a clean environment 23 -Figure 2. Or it may involve simply the raising of an alarm condition, alerting personnel, and others, to the non-compliance.

Hand washing is detected, as illustrated in Figure 1, by detecting use of hand washing equipment or hand washing activity.

Detection of use of hand washing equipment involves a sensor 14, by a handwash dispenser 15. Conveniently, a proximity detector 12 can detect the presence of a hand below the dispenser IS, and actuate a plunger 13 on the dispenser 15, as well as a water tap 10, to turn on the tap and dispense an appropriate amount of handwash, and, at the same time, flag this action an ID card or pass 16 that incorporates an RFID chip 17 on an ID aerial card 18.

The RFID chip 17 comprises a microcircuit that has several data registers. Some of these registers may contain data about the card carrier, while another is used for handwash verification purposes. When the detector 14 detects the presence of a hand, it sends a signal via a card read/write device 14A, which reads the card carried by the person activating the detector 14. It is quite easy to adjust the range of the device to read just the card in the immediate vicinity of the detector 14. It is possible for the device to detect two or more cards, and to decline to verify. Instead, an indicatorl9 would ask that only one person at a time should present within a verification zone, which might be marked on the floor around the wash hand basin.

The device, sensing the presence on one and only one ID card 16 sends a signal to the RFID microcircuit that loads the data register with a code confirming the time of the handwash.

An RFID read/write device 24 at exit 21 allows passage only if the handwashing operation has been flagged to the RFID microcircuit 21, and then only if the time of the handwash, as read from the chip register is recent -it may be set, for example, for three minutes, if that is decided to be the maximum time allowed for exit after handwashing -this militates against personnel carrying out some other function after handwashing that could re-infect. Detection of an appropriate time in the register releases the exit 11 and also writes to the microcircuit 17 to expunge the record.

The read/write devices 14A, 24 can be connected to a database 25 to log, against personnel records on the database, handwash and movement data, flagging up any instances of non-compliance, particularly where no physical barrier to movement is employed. Such data may be used inter alia to help trace the source of an infection that, despite the precautions herein prescribed, spreads through an institution.

An RFID tag is, of course, remotely readable, within a limited, and prescribable, range.

A smart card, which also has a microcircuit, could be used in the same way, but would need to be fed into a swipe reader, for example, both to activate a handwash, and flag up on the card that the handwash had been activated, and to release the exit 11. Measures could be taken against the spread of infection on the cards themselves via the swipe readers. One such measure is to incorporate an antibacterial agent such as Microban in the plastic of the smart card.

Figure 3 illustrates a system that relies on the detection of a handwash volatile, such as alcohol, at an exit. After washing, the hands will retain traces of the handwash liquid.

The exit 11 is released on a signal from an artificial nose' 31, such as a semiconducting polymer array that detects and identifies vapours. Such arrays can be trained using neural nets to detect particular substances, and alcohol is one volatile that can be readily detected. However, it might be desired to include in the handwash a more specific tracer volatile.

The nose' 3! is located in a collector 32 located at the exit, into which the hand is inserted to release the exit. The collector leads to a detection chamber 33 in which the nose 31 is located, and through which air is drawn by a fan 34 activated by a proximity switch, not shown, which also starts up the control circuitry 35 that releases the exit if the appropriate vapour is detected.

As it is essentially immaterial what creates signals, smart cards, even magnetic stripe cards, semiconducting polymers arrays and indeed any other kind of sensor, can give rise to signals that can be used for control purposes and data records and analysis, and the invention can therefore be implemented using a range of available technologies.

Claims

Claims: I A method for enforcing use of a hygiene procedure comprising

restricting movement of personnel by detecting a condition indicating that a hygiene procedure has not been carried out, or by not detecting a condition indicating that a hygiene procedure has been carried out, and actuating a movement restricting condition accordingly.
2 A method according to claim I, in which the hygiene procedure comprises hand washing.
3 A method according to Claim I or claim 2, in which the movement restricting condition comprises locking, or failing to unlock, an exit -a gate or door, for example -out from an at-risk environment or into a clean environment.
4 A method according to any one of claims 1 to 3, in which the movement restricting condition comprises the raising of an alarm condition, alerting personnel, and others, to the non-compliance.
A method according to any one of claims I to 4, in which hand washing is detected by detecting use of hand washing equipment or activity.
6 A method according to claim 5, in which detection of use of hand washing equipment involves a sensor on a handwash dispenser.
7 A method according to any one of claims I to 6, in which detection of the condition is flagged to an ID card or pass that incorporates an RFID chip.
8 A method according to claim 7, in which a restricted portal has an RFID reader that allows passage only if the handwashing operation has been flagged to the RFID chip.
9 A method according to claim 7 or claim 8, in which the RFID chip has multiple read/write registers.
A method according to any one of claims 7 to 19, in which a handwash dispenser, on use, actuates a read-write action that writes to a register of the REFID microcircuit a code indicating that the dispenser has been used and the time and date of use.
11 A method according to claim 10, in which the pass thereby provided is time-limited, it being arranged that it is ineffective to release the exit after a predetermined time interval.
12 A method according to any one of claims Ito 11, in which, when passing through the portal, as permitted by the pass code, the portal read/write equipment erases the pass code, clearing the register space for the next such code.
13 A method according to any one of claims Ito 12, in which an RFID chip used in the method is loaded with personal information that is used to track personnel movements through a hospital or other institution, details being recorded in a database.
14 A method according to any one of claims I to 13, using a magnetic strip card or a smart card requiring a read/write slot.
A method according to claim 14, comprising a measure against the card itself becoming a disease vector.
16 A method according to claim IS, in which card is loaded with an anti-bacterial compound such as Microban.
17 A smart card or like card or key that is presented to a reader to gain access or other privilege especially in a hospital, clinic or like institution where such a card could be a disease vector, which is loaded with an anti-bacterial compound such as Microban.
18 A method according to any one of claims I to 5, in which a volatile substance left on the hands by a hand washing activity is detected by an artificial nose'.
19 A method according to claimiS, in which the nose' comprises an array of semiconducting polymers and associated circuitry adapted to emit a signal on detection of a specific volatile.
20 A method according to claim 18 or claim 19, in which the volatile comprises alcohol.
21 A method according to any one of claims 18 to 21, in which the volatile comprises a tracer substance comprised in a handwash.