It’s been suggested that the primary cause of nosocomial (hospital acquired) infection is health care providers not washing their hands enough. Studies show an appalling number of nurses and doctors don’t wash their hands between patients, not to mention the respiratory therapists, CNAs, physical therapists, etc. who are in and out of the room all day.
Some hospitals have instituted “pump in, pump out” policies, where the provider is supposed to use hand sanitizer every time they go in and out of a room. I can tell you that this still doesn’t happen.
So…I had a thought. What about setting up an infared beam and “eye” across the doorway linked to an alarm on the hand sanitizer dispenser? Walk through the doorway and break the beam and if in 10 seconds the hand sanitizer hasn’t been pressed, it will alarm.
Will it be annoying? Heck yes. That’s the point. Is it treating professionals as if they were small children who need constant reminders to wash their hands? Yep. But only the ones who aren’t washing their hands.
When I pop into a room to borrow a piece of equipment, I will be gone from the room by the time the alarm sounds, leaving an annoyed and confused patient.
Just another alarming call system for the biomedical staff to maintain. I can’t see anyone installing one of these for any reason: cost, annoyance, repair. Nah. Ain’t gonna happen.
And then I’ll know it was YOU who “borrowed” my pump! Not seeing the downside.
Okay, that’s legitimate. But according to “pump in, pump out” procedure, you *should *be using the sanitizer even if you’re only going in there to grab something. I realize not every place has that policy, but it seems like a 10 second inconvenience to equipment grabbers shouldn’t prohibit us from preventing the spread of infections from room to room.
Yes, it would. And visitors should be washing their hands every time they walk in or out, too. They can bring bacteria in with them and infect Aunt Martha or Aunt Martha could have bacteria on her skin, bedding, bedside table, etc. and they could touch them, pick up some bacteria and spread it through the hospital when they leave. The walls, the button for the elevator, the vending machines…all vectors which can harbor harmful bacteria that can then be picked up by other people and taken into other patient rooms.
Thank you guys for bringing all of these up, by the way. I don’t want it to seem like I’m discounting your thoughts, I’m really not. I’m really trying to hear what problems there are - perceived or otherwise - before I decide whether or not to make this a class project.
Our hospital system encourages visitors to use the hand sanitizer, so it would remind them, too.
Can those beams tell whether you are going in or out? No point in having it alarm the pump inside the room if you were going out. A provider could be pretty far away by the time the inside pump would alarm 10 seconds later.
Shouldn’t visitors be pumping in and out too, though? They may not be visiting other patients, but we don’t want them bringing germs from patient room to the cafeteria, or the gift shop, or what have you.
Oh, *good *point. I am not an engineer. I was looking at my daughter’s “bedroom alarm” toy when I had the idea.
Hmmm…could you have two beams placed about two feet apart? A is closer to the hallway, B closer to the room. If A is triggered before B, the alarm process is set in motion for the interior pump. If B is triggered before A, the alarm process sets for the outside pump. Maybe?
Hospital staff would wear a personal alarm linked to their ID tag. If they go out of a room, and do not wash hands at the station within 10 seconds, the alarm on their tag will shout out:
Warning! Dirty filthy hands on this (doctor/nurse)! This (doctor/nurse) is contaminated! Warning, Warning!
How do you propose to deal with the people who “know better”, and would circumvent the issue? While there are probably few medical personnel who would, I am sure some would (more in the winter, I bet, when hands crack & sanitizer stings like a bitch for several seconds after). Furthermore, I can see MANY visitors doing so. Your proposal sets it up, reasonably, to be dependent on a pump of the sanitizer. I see a potentially large puddle of unused sanitizer every day for the cleaning staff to deal with, and only marginally increased usage (and thus reduced infection rate) if people, especially staff, decide to depress the lever without actually using the sanitizer (because they “know” they don’t need to or because “it’ll sting” or anything else).
I think it’s a cool idea, actually, if you think the people who most need to do it (staff, because they’re in and out so much) would actually do so.
Oh, and what about dehydration resistance of bacteria? Would that be a concern with sanitizer vs hand-washing?
Develop some innocuous compound that can be dusted on certain commonly touched bits in the room: This invisible powder would be activated by enzymes in the skin after fifteen minutes, and it would turn the skin bright indelible purple wherever it touched. This same powder would be totally deactivated by the hand sanitizer, as long as it hasn’t been activated by the enzymes yet.
Then you establish your “pump in/pump out” program with the additional feature that there will be random spot checks, where the magic powder might be scattered somewhere, and whoever has purple hands ends up buying pizza for the shift.
This process could be tweaked: why not use powder that only glows in ultraviolet light? That way, the offender won’t see it until the end of the shift when the spot checking crew has everyone hold their hands under the light.
The punishment could be dialed down to simply publicizing the offender’s names, or dialed up to administrative action if needed.
I had a wicked cold right when my husband was in the hospital getting his gall bladder removed. He had to have the big incision, not the easy, discharged-later-this-afternoon surgery. Because I washed my hands and used hand sanitizer scrupulously, he didn’t get my cold while he was trying to get over fairly serious surgery. Yeah, visitors absolutely have a responsibility to “pump in and out”, too. It’s for the visitors’ safety, too - I always wash my hands when leaving a hospital, and try not to touch things while in there.
I don’t know about the alarmed hand sanitizing stations, but I agree that leaving it to the medical professionals to do the right thing obviously isn’t good enough.
You’ll have to increase the custodial staff to deal with the piles of unused sanitizer goo on the floor under every dispenser left by the people who hit the dispenser it to prevent the alarm, but don’t actually catch it.
And old Dr. I-Am-God, who does things his way including skipping sanitizer, but is senior partner of the practice that brings in a substantial amount of cash for the hospital, will shortly complain and threaten to move his practice to another hospital, resulting in quick removal of the alarms.
