Hand Hygiene Compliance Monitoring Enhancements Help Customize Report Data

DebMed, creator of the world’s first electronic hand hygiene compliance monitoring system based on the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) “Five Moments for Hand Hygiene,” has released enhanced functionality for the hand hygiene compliance reports that are available in the DebMed GMS (Group Monitoring System).


“Providing a system that is easy for our clients to use and provides the most valuable information to help them improve patient safety and quality of care is our highest priority,” said Heather McLarney, Vice President of Marketing, DebMed. “We will continue to incorporate feedback from customers as well as insights from industry thought leaders into our future product enhancements to ensure we are delivering market-leading solutions.”


The DebMed GMS electronically monitors and provides feedback on the hand hygiene activity of healthcare workers to improve compliance and help reduce hospital-associated infections (HAIs), which affect 1 in 20 patients and account for nearly 100,000 deaths in the U.S. annually. Proper hand hygiene is the number one way to prevent HAIs, yet the typical rate of hand hygiene compliance is estimated to be only 40 percent to 50 percent.


The DebMed GMS reports show hand hygiene activity by facility, unit, patient room or even an individual soap or sanitizer dispenser. Access to reports that provide details on rooms and dispensers allow hospitals to track events when there is an outbreak of an infectious disease, such as C. difficile, a potentially life-threatening bacterium that commonly affects older adults in healthcare facilities.


The latest release includes new functionality to further enhance the users’ experience. New interactive graphs now enable users to add or remove hand hygiene performance metrics to the graph with a simple click of the mouse.


Additional improvements include the ability for hospital staff to automatically receive hand hygiene compliance reports at a scheduled frequency by email and to receive reports for outpatient areas like the mammography department.


About DebMed
DebMed is the healthcare program of the Deb Group. The DebMed program offers innovative hand hygiene products, electronic monitoring technology and improvement tools to support hand hygiene compliance. The DebMed® GMS (Group Monitoring System) is the world’s first group monitoring system to report hand hygiene compliance rates in real-time based on the World Health Organization’s (WHO) “Five Moments for Hand Hygiene” and to date has recorded more than 16 million hand hygiene events.  The electronic monitoring system is being utilized in a four year, multi-site research project being conducted by the Columbia University School of Nursing and funded by a $1.2 million grant from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). It is the first study aimed at reducing healthcare-associated infections in pediatric long-term care facilities by improving staff compliance with hand hygiene guidelines.  Deb is the first hand hygiene company in the world to provide actionable information along with its hand hygiene products to help drive best practices and improved outcomes for patients worldwide. www.debmed.com.

About Deb Group
Possessing international scale and strong local market presence, Deb Group provides innovative skin care programs for all types of workplace and public environments, spanning industrial, commercial, healthcare and food sectors. Headquartered in the United Kingdom with US operations based in Charlotte, N.C., Deb Group is comprised of 21 companies operating in 16 countries. www.debgroup.com.