CDC Director Dr. Thomas R. Frieden Warns Nightmare Bacteria on Rise in Hospitals; In Response, Desperate Need for Electronic Hand Hygiene Compliance Monitoring Systems

CHARLOTTE, N.C., March 6, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Nightmare superbugs now threaten the lives of patients and healthcare professionals, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The bacteria kill half of all people with serious infections and resist antibiotic treatment. Is it too late for hospitals, nursing homes and patients to vanquish these killers?  

Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the CDC, has alarmed healthcare providers with the announcement on March 5 of a dangerous super bug, Carbapenem-Resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE), and has urged hospitals and nursing homes to protect patients and families through vigorous hand hygiene programs. Hand hygiene ranked in the top-ten patient safety practices released this week by the Agency for Healthcare Quality and Research (AHRQ). 

"Healthcare facilities must remain on high alert to stop the spread of  the killer bacteria through vigorous enforcement of infection control and hand hygiene policies and practices," said Paul Alper, vice president of strategy and business development for DebMed, the creator of the DebMed^® GMS™, an  electronic hand hygiene compliance monitoring system. "It is imperative that both hospitals and patients stand on the front lines of the battle against bacteria by being compliant with strict hand hygiene guidelines and insisting on aggressive hand cleaning by their healthcare providers."

Unfortunately, traditional hand hygiene monitoring methods lack the sophistication to provide staff with the reliable data needed to combat serious bacterial infections and save lives. That's why healthcare organizations must turn to electronic monitoring of hand hygiene compliance and provide workers feedback on performance and the ability to focus in on areas where improvement is needed. Traditional hand hygiene monitoring methods, which rely on staff conducting manual observations, fail due to inherent flaws like the Hawthorne effect, a phenomenon where people act differently when they know they are being watched, small sample size, and observer bias. 

DebMed's electronic monitoring system provides an accurate, cost-effective solution for fighting superbugs. The DebMed GMS is based on the World Health Organization's (WHO) "Five Moments for Hand Hygiene" and is now the only hand hygiene system that meets the WHO's "Save Lives: Clean Your Hands" recommendation. The "Five Moments" are before patient contact, before aseptic task, after body fluid exposure risk, after patient contact and after contact with patient surroundings. The DebMed GMS(Group Monitoring System) electronically monitors healthcare workers' hand hygiene events and provides feedback on compliance rates in real-time.

To see an infographic on the importance of hand-washing in hospitals and learn more about DebMed, please visit debmed.com/infographic.

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 27 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.

For more information on the study or DebMed, visit 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 U.S. operations based in Charlotte, NC, Deb Group is comprised of 21 companies operating in 16 countries. For more information, visit www.debgroup.com.

SOURCE DebMed