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Methods for ensuring and tracking hand hygiene compliance

  • US 10,121,149 B2
  • Filed: 09/17/2013
  • Issued: 11/06/2018
  • Est. Priority Date: 09/17/2012
  • Status: Active Grant
First Claim
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1. A computer-implemented method for tracking dispensing of a plurality of hand hygiene dispensers comprising:

  • connecting the plurality of hand hygiene dispensers to a computer network, each of the plurality of dispensers having a reservoir with hand sanitizer and a sensor for determining an amount of hand sanitizer in the reservoir, each hand hygiene dispenser being associated with an individual user and having an indicator that signals when the user dispenses hand sanitizer to notify the individual user that a signal is being transmitted;

    determining by a processor dispensing rates of the plurality of hand hygiene dispensers for a plurality of predetermined time periods;

    identifying each of the plurality of hand hygiene dispensers with an individual user code and determining locations of the plurality of hand hygiene dispensers;

    providing the identified hand hygiene dispensers to the individual users;

    normalizing the dispensing rates of the plurality of hand hygiene dispensers by determining with a processor a predetermined number of highest dispensing rates out of the plurality of predetermined time periods for each dispenser and calculating an average dispensing rate for each dispenser based on the predetermined number of highest dispensing rates for the dispenser;

    detecting whether users are using a predetermined amount of hand sanitizer for hand hygiene compliance by, for each dispenser, detecting a number of dispenser activations, determining by the sensor the amount of hand sanitizer in the reservoir, and comparing, by the respective hand hygiene dispenser, the number of dispenser activations with the amount of hand sanitizer in the reservoir determined by the sensor;

    displaying the dispensing rates of the plurality of hand hygiene dispensers;

    sending a notification to an individual user regarding performance based on the individual user'"'"'s average hand hygiene dispensing rates and whether the predetermined amount of hand sanitizer is being used for hand hygiene compliance; and

    reviewing the dispensing of one or more of the plurality of hand hygiene dispensers to determine whether one or more of the plurality of hand hygiene dispensers has a higher dispensing rate to detect cheating by the one or more individual users for the one or more plurality of hand hygiene dispensers by calculating a mean time between dispenser activations for each dispenser and determining whether a number of the dispenser activations occur below the mean time.

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