A Novel System to Quantify the Risk of Exposure to Infection in Healthcare Settings Using Wearables

Hand hygiene is the most effective way to prevent infection transmission. This has been even more highlighted in current pandemic where with correct PPE and good HH, families were be able to visit and touch their loved ones. However, adequate HH actions are sometimes neglected due to high workload and time deficiency in healthcare settings. In addition, the measures used to calculate HH performance are not able to fully benefit from the high-resolution data collected by current Electronic Monitoring Systems. The main focus of this proposal is to improve the quality of care by estimating the risk of infection for each patient individually and gently prompting staff to perform hand hygiene when they forget to do so. Therefore, the HCWs will be encouraged to perform HH action and decrease this risk instead of using a negative disciplinary tone that emphasizes their compliance rate. The insights of the system can be used to propose new patient-centered infection control approaches.

Faculty Supervisor:

Atena Roshan Fekr

Student:

Partner:

Hygienic Echo Inc

Discipline:

Computer science

Sector:

Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

University of Toronto

Program: