WO2014062755A1

WO2014062755A1 - Hand washing monitoring system for public restrooms

Info

Publication number: WO2014062755A1
Application number: PCT/US2013/065162
Authority: WO
Inventors: Raymond C. Johnson
Original assignee: Johnson Raymond C
Priority date: 2012-10-16
Filing date: 2013-10-16
Publication date: 2014-04-24

Abstract

Methods are disclosed for monitoring and encouraging hand-washing compliance among the general population. A system is described that determines when a person is in a room and may determine based on either their presence, or their actions or motions within the room, whether they should wash their hands before leaving the room. The system determines not only whether soap has been dispensed by a person, but whether the soap has been used in a hand-washing procedure. For persons in an area such as a public restroom, an alert is issued if they should have completed a hand-washing procedure, but did not do so.

Description

HAND WASHING MONITORING SYSTEM FOR PUBLIC RESTROOMS

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The importance of hand-washing to personal and public health is well-known and well documented. Much research illuminates the benefit of following regular hand-washing protocols in any medical or food service establishment and many inventions attempt to address the need to monitor employee hand-washing, especially in medical contexts. However, there are far fewer, if any, attempts to monitor hand-washing behavior in the general public. Yet, clearly, a lack of hand-washing among the general public can have health consequences similar in character and perhaps in magnitude to hand-washing failures among specific industries such as food service.

An example of an attempt to monitor hand-washing among anonymous persons is Koblasz (US8040245) who discloses a system for monitoring hand-washing for persons entering a hospital patient room. While primarily oriented toward enforcing hand^¬ washing among hospital employees, it may also monitor visitors to hospital rooms. Others have described a variety of other hand-washing monitoring system and schemes specifically oriented toward medical or food industry employees. However, in all cases of prior art as in Koblasz, the systems purport to monitor hand-washing, but actually do no such thing. They monitor only whether or not soap or disinfectant has been dispensed by a dispenser. This invention remedies this serious short-coming of all other alleged hand-washing monitoring schemes in that it actually monitors whether or not soap arrives on a person's hands and may determine whether a person's hands perform a set of motions corresponding to proper hand washing. In addition, the current system may determine whether or not hand-washing is even required of an arbitrary person based on the person's motion within a space and/or the activities in which the person is engaged while within the space.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention is a system for monitoring hand-washing compliance among the general public in a restroom or other area in which hand-washing may be appropriate. It will be understood that the term room may mean a physical room, such as a public restroom, or any designated area that can be monitored by a system of surveillance or other cameras.

In each case the system monitors hand-washing by capturing, at least, whether a proper hand-washing has been performed at a sink or other hand-washing station, an image of the person performing the hand-washing, and an image of each person either entering or leaving the room or area being monitored. In each case, based on comparison of images of the person entering or leaving the room with persons who have washed their hands, the system determines whether or not the person entering or leaving should be alerted that they need to wash their hands and alerts them if necessary. In a simple embodiment of the system, an image is captured of each person entering a room. If an image of a person matching the image captured upon entry is not captured at a hand-washing station along with images verifying that the person has performed a proper hand-washing within a predetermined period of time, an alert is issued to inform the user and perhaps others in the vicinity that the person who entered the room has not washed their hands within the required time period.

In all embodiments, the alert may consist of an audio message emitted from a speaker, a video display showing an alert message, an image of the person who entered the room or both. Other types of alerts may be issued and the description of the types of alerts herein are not intended to limit the implementation to exclude other types of alerts.

In another embodiment of the system, an image is captured of each person exiting a room. If an image of a person matching the image captured upon exit has not been captured at a hand-washing station prior to exit along with images verifying that the person has performed a proper hand-washing, an alert is issued described above. In yet another embodiment of the system, a set of cameras is positioned in or near a room that captures a series of images sufficient to monitor the motion of the person within the room and/ or the activities in which the person is engaged in the room. Based on the motion of the person within the room and/or the detected activities of the person within the room, a determination is made as to whether or not a hand^¬ washing is required of the person prior to exit from the room. If it is determined that a hand-washing is required, and an image of a person matching the image captured upon exit has not been captured at a hand-washing station prior to exit along with images verifying that a proper hand-washing has been performed by that person, an alert is issued described above.

As an example, a set of cameras is mounted at locations in a public restroom to allow monitoring of a persons activities within the room, but in such a way as to maintain any necessary degree of privacy. Images from these cameras are used to determine that person A enters the room, goes to the mirror and straightens his tie and then leaves the room. Because his activities do not require a hand-washing, no alert is issued when he leaves the room. Meanwhile, person B enters the room and proceeds to a stall, becoming invisible to the system. After a period of time, person B exits the stall and attempts to exit the restroom. The system determines, based on the spatial motion of person B, that a hand-washing is required and an alert is immediately issued.

It will be understood that any set or combination of such systems may be connected to one another or to a central computer or computing facility via any type of electrical network, so that hand-washing compliance data may be aggregated and reported to management. For example, such a system in use in a public airport would allow monitoring by the airport authority of public hand-washing compliance so that the public could be apprised of the cleanliness and relative safety of the airport. Such a system used in a restaurant, would allow restaurant management to insure not only employee but public compliance with hand-washing protocol to help insure food safety.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a top view of a room or space in which the current system is in use to monitor hand-washing

FIG. 2 is a diagram of the network architecture for an arbitrarily complex set of hand^¬ washing monitoring systems in an arbitrary number of monitored spaces

FIG. 3 is a flow chart showing the process flow for one embodiment of the invention FIG. 4 is a flow chart showing the process flow for a second embodiment of the invention

FIG. 5 is a flow chart showing the process flow for a third embodiment of the invention

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The following description discloses methods and systems for monitoring actual hand^¬ washing protocols and processes, as distinct from simply monitoring the dispensing of soap or disinfectant from a dispenser, for persons who are members of the general public, and for alerting said persons when a hand-washing should be performed but has not been.

In this detailed description, reference is made to the associated drawings which are illustrative of specific embodiments of the system and are not to be construed as limiting the invention or any part thereof to any particular embodiment described.

FIG. 1 shows an example of a space in which hand-washing monitoring may be desired. Specifically a restroom is shown, however, it will be apparent that the space to be monitored could equally be any other room or space in which monitoring of hand- washing may be desirable. In the room shown in FIG. 1, a camera (10) may be mounted outside any door of the room to capture images of each person entering the room. Alternately, or in addition, a camera (70) may be mounted in the room near the doorway to capture images of each person exiting the room. In addition, cameras (60) may optionally be mounted at such points within the room necessary to monitor the motion of persons within the room and/ or the activities in which such persons are engaged. In all embodiments, one or more cameras and other equipment (20) are mounted at any sink or hand-washing stations (30) within the room, as needed to capture images of each person (80) performing a hand-washing and determine whether the hand-washing has been performed properly according to a protocol.

Various possible paths a person may take through the restroom are shown (90, 100 and 110) to illustrate monitoring the person moving into a space such as a restroom stall (40) or urinal area (50) or performing an activity that would require hand-washing to be performed before leaving the room.

FIG. 2 is a diagram of the abstract network architecture of a set of hand-washing monitoring systems. An arbitrary number of rooms or spaces (230) may be monitored. The monitoring in each room or space may be a different embodiment of the system depending on the hand-washing requirements of the room or space. In every case, at least one hand-washing monitoring system (20) including at least one camera are located in the monitored room or space. In addition, a number of cameras (220) necessary to the embodiment of the invention used in that room or space. For example, in Room 2, there are two hand-washing sinks, but only a single camera is used to monitor ingress of persons to the area. As another example, in Room 3, there is only one hand-washing station, but three cameras. One camera monitors egress of persons from the area, while two other cameras monitor the activities in which the person is engaged while in the area.

In all cases, the hand-washing monitoring systems and observation cameras are connected electrically to sufficient computational power (210) to perform the image processing necessary for both matching users entering or leaving the room or area to those performing hand-washing or other activities and to monitor the hand-washing procedures being performed in the room or area. Typically the connections are network connections (240) through a network routing or switching apparatus (250), but the connections may be any electrical (wired or wireless) connections necessary to transfer the image and hand-washing data between source and computers (USB, IEEE 1394, CAT5 and the like). It will be apparent that the computations to be performed may require that the computing system involved in any given embodiment of the system may comprise any number of actual computers, storage devices and the like and that the computers, storage devices, etc. may be physically located within the room or area being monitored, elsewhere in the building in which monitoring is occurring or externally to the building with connections being internet connections.

FIG. 3 shows the flow chart for a particular embodiment of the invention. In this embodiment, parallel, but intercommunicating processes are running to monitor a room. One process detects each person entering the room (310) by capturing an image of the person and starting a countdown timer for that person (320). This process periodically checks whether the timer has expired for each person in its store of persons who have entered (330). If the countdown timer expired for each person being monitored, the process checks whether a hand-washing has occurred for that person (340). If it has not, an alert is issued (350) to notify the person that a hand-washing is required before leaving the room. The person is then removed from the store of persons being monitored (390).

Meanwhile, a hand-washing monitoring process runs which captures an image of each person performing a hand-washing and monitors the hand-washing process. When it detects that a person is performing a hand-washing (360), it matches the image of the person performing the hand-washing to images of persons who have entered the room and are being monitored by the other process (370). If the hand-washing person is successfully matched to a person who has entered the room and the hand-washing procedure was correctly followed (380) the monitoring process is notified to stop monitoring that person (390).

Referring again to FIG. 1, this embodiment of the invention would consist of only cameras (10 and 20) along with the hand-washing monitoring system at the sink (30). It would operate equally regardless of the path taken by the person in the room or their activities in the room.

FIG. 4 shows a different embodiment of the invention. In this embodiment, like the last, there are two parallel intercommunicating processes running. The first process detects each person that performs a hand-washing (400) and monitors the hand^¬ washing to insure that it has been done correctly (410). If a person at a hand-washing station has successfully completed a hand-washing procedure, that fact along with an image captured of the person are stored for future access by the second process (420) The second process looks for persons leaving the room (430). When a person is detected leaving the room, an image of the person leaving is matched with images of persons who have performed a hand-washing (440). If a match is not found (450), an alert is issued (460).

Referring again to FIG. 1, this second embodiment of the invention consists of cameras (70 and 20) along with the hand-washing monitoring system at the sink (30). Similarly, it's operation is not path dependent.

FIG. 5 shows a third embodiment of the invention, in which three parallel

intercommunicating processes are running. A first process detects each person entering the room (500), captures an image of the person and tags it as not needing a hand-washing (510). The process then continues to monitor the person using an arbitrary number of cameras and arbitrarily complex rules to monitor either the motion of the person within the room or the activities of the person within the room, or both (520). If the system detects based on the rule set in use for the room that the person has entered an area or performed an activity that indicates that the person needs to perform a hand-washing before leaving the room (530), the person being so monitored is tagged as needing a hand-washing (540).

Meanwhile, a second process monitors hand-washing. It captures an image of each person performing a hand-washing and monitors the hand-washing process. When it detects that a person is performing a hand-washing (550), it matches the image of the person performing the hand-washing to images of persons who have entered the room and are being monitored by the first process (560). If the hand-washing person is successfully matched to a person who has entered the room and the hand-washing procedure was correctly followed (570) the person being monitored by the first process is tagged as not needing a hand-washing (580).

A third process detects each person leaving the room (590) and captures an image of the person. When it detects a person leaving, it matches the image of the person to images of persons who have entered the room (600). It inquires as to whether the matched person is tagged as needing a hand-washing (610). If the person is so tagged, an alert is issued (620). Finally the system stops monitoring the person that has left the room (630). Referring to FIG. 1, this embodiment includes cameras (10, 70 and 20) for capturing images of persons entering the room, leaving the room and performing a hand-washing respectively, along with hand-washing monitoring systems at each sink or wash station (30). In addition this embodiment may include an arbitrary number of cameras (60) positioned so as to monitor the motion and/or activities of person in the room. Unlike the previous embodiments, the operation of this embodiment is dependent on the path taken or activities performed by the person while in the room. For example, a person taking only path (90) in and out of the room would not be in an area or performing an activity that requires a hand-washing. Therefore, when they are detected leaving the room, no alert is issued. A person following path (110) into the room, followed by path (100) and then by path (90), may or may not be alerted, depending on whether the person is detected performing a satisfactory hand-washing at the sink (30) between path (100) and path (90). A person following only path (110) in and out of the room would be tagged as needing a hand-washing and none would be detected. Therefore, this person would receive an alert.

It will be clear that various changes may be made to the processes, computing and imaging systems, and other methods described in the various example embodiments present here without departing from the scope of this invention.

Claims

WHAT IS CLAIMED:

1. A system comprising:

a camera positioned at the entrance of a room or area which captures an image of each person entering

the room or area;

a complete hand-washing monitoring system located at one or more sinks located in the room or area

which verifies that the person has received dispensed soap on their hands and performed necessary

hand-washing motions;

a camera positioned proximate to the hand-washing monitoring system which captures an image of

the person performing the hand-washing;

a computing system which compares images of persons entering the room or area with images of

persons performing a hand-washing within the room or area and which determines for each person

entering the room or area whether or not they have performed a hand-washing within a certain period

of time;

an alert system which notifies each person who has failed to perform a hand-washing within the

required time period that a hand washing is required.

2. The system of claim 1 with alert being an audio alert informing the person that a hand-washing is required.

3. The system of claim 1 with alert being a video alert that shows an image of the person being notified that has been captured by the camera at the entrance of the room or area and issues a visual message informing the person that a hand-washing is required.

4. A system comprising:

a camera positioned at the exit of a room or area which captures an image of each person exiting the

room or area;

hand-washing motions;

the person performing the hand-washing;

a computing system which compares images of persons exiting the room or area with images of

exiting the room or area whether or not they have performed a hand-washing prior to exiting the

room or area;

an alert system which notifies each person who has failed to perform a hand-washing prior to exiting

the room or area that a hand washing is required.

5. The system of claim 4 with alert being an audio alert informing the person that a hand-washing is required.

6. The system of claim 4 with alert being a video alert that shows an image of the person being notified that has been captured by the camera at the entrance of the room or area and issues a visual message informing the person that a hand-washing is required.

7. A system comprising:

a set camera positioned at a variety of positions within a room or area such that images of a person

within the room or area may be captured at any number of designated points or sub-areas within the

room or area, at least one of said cameras being positioned such that an image may be captured of

each person exiting said room or area;

hand-washing motions;

the person performing the hand-washing;

persons performing a hand-washing within the room or area and which determines for each person exiting the room or area whether or not they have performed a hand-washing prior to exiting the

room or area; said computing system also comparing images of the person exiting the room or area

with images of the motion of the person through the room or area or with images of the activities

performed by the person while in the room or area and making a determination as to whether or not a

hand-washing is required for said person based on their motion or activities within the room or area;

an alert system which notifies each person for whom it has been determined by the computing system

that a hand-washing is required, but who has failed to perform a hand-washing prior to exiting the

room or area, that a hand washing is required.

8. The system of claim 7 with alert being an audio alert informing the person that a hand-washing is required.

9. The system of claim 7 with alert being a video alert that shows an image of the person being notified that has been captured by the camera at the entrance of the room or area and issues a visual message informing the person that a hand-washing is required.

10. The system of claim 7 with the alert being a wailing siren and a general public announcement that the person leaving the room has not washed their hands.