This sounds promising. Would this be helpful to CNA’s?

Canadian-made technology may provide health-care workers with a convenient reminder to disinfect before they touch their patients, helping eradicate so-called superbugs from hospital settings.

Even though diligent hand hygiene is known to significantly cut hospital-acquired infections, studies show that health-care workers wash their hands before seeing a new patient only about 30 to 40 per cent of the time. Physicians on rounds are among the worst offenders.

Superbugs are posing an increasing threat. These include MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) and Clostridium difficile as well as E. coli and strains of viral influenza.

Now, researchers at the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute have developed a hand hygiene device. It consists of a sensor worn around the neck, infrared lights above the patient’s bed, and an alcohol gel dispenser attached to the waistband.

A health-care worker wears the sensor and a beep is triggered when the person approaches a patient’s bed, reminding them to use the sanitizing gel. If the health-care worker has already done so, the beep will not sound.

The system also records the time of entry and exit from each patient area and the number of times hands are disinfected. This data can be downloaded into a computer so individual staff members can check their overall hand hygiene and compare it anonymously against their peers.

Toronto Rehab nurse Veronique Boscart said a couple of pumps means she has just prevented the transfer of bacteria from patient A to patient B.

“Often because there is such a high demand, I wouldn’t disinfect my hands in between two patients,” she told CBC News. “This system reminds me to do so.”

When we consider how often we should wash our hand, these reminder devices could come in handy. The technology that goes into this stuff amazes me.