DebMed Announces Collaborative Partnership with the Hospital for Sick Children to Combat HAIs

DebMed®, creator of an award-winning, electronic hand hygiene compliance monitoring system based on hand hygiene standards recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) and acknowledged by the Canadian Patient Safety Institute (CPSI), announces today its partnership with the Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) in Toronto, Canada. This is the first installation of DebMed’s Group Monitoring System (GMS) in Canada, and the first in a pediatric hospital in North America.
 
According to the Canadian Patient Safety Institute, about 220,000 people – or one out of every nine patients admitted to the hospital each year in Canada – acquire infections while being treated for something else, and 8,000 – 12,000 patients die from those infections. The number one way to reduce the spread of infections is by healthcare workers complying with guidelines for cleaning their hands.
 
“SickKids is committed to being a leader in quality through continuous improvement and optimizing patient safety. Experts agree that a multifaceted, multidisciplinary hand hygiene program must be implemented in all healthcare settings. Measurement, feedback and staff engagement are among the core elements of a multifaceted approach,” says Richard Wray, director of quality, safety and infection control at SickKids. “The data from the DebMed GMS hand hygiene monitoring system will be a useful tool to help improve hand hygiene compliance and help reduce infection rates.”
 
The DebMed GMS electronically tracks if healthcare workers are cleaning their hands as frequently as they should and provides timely reports that encourage the staff to work together as a team to help improve hand hygiene compliance. The system is customized to each hospital unit based on the number of patients and frequency of care. It is the only system available in Canada that electronically tracks staff hand hygiene compliance based on the “Four Moments for Hand Hygiene” standard, which advocates opportunities for hand cleaning such as before starting an IV or after risk of exposure to body fluids, instead of just upon entrance and exit of the patient room.
 
“Hand hygiene is a growing imperative for hospitals to meet their patient safety goals, and we applaud SickKids for taking the lead and becoming the first pediatric hospital in North America to install the DebMed GMS,” says Heather McLarney, vice president of marketing, DebMed, North America. “SickKids is committed to reducing the number of hospital-acquired infections and improving staff hand hygiene compliance through innovative electronic monitoring of hand hygiene based on the “Four Moments for Hand Hygiene” standard.” 
 
Source: DebMed®