DebMed® Announces Expanded Distribution to Healthcare Organizations of its DebMed Group Monitoring System (GMS)

CHARLOTTE, N.C., Dec. 19, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- 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, today announces the company's expanded distribution model for 2014. As the result of a recent agreement with STERIS Corporation, DebMed will be able to provide healthcare organizations with greater access to electronic monitoring of hand hygiene activity, a reliable method for increasing hand hygiene compliance and preventing the spread of infections.

"By working with an established leader in healthcare and infection prevention like STERIS, we are immediately able to significantly expand our reach to healthcare organizations across the U.S. to provide greater awareness of and access to the DebMed® GMS™ hand hygiene monitoring solution," said Didier Bouton, president of DebMed. "The DebMed GMS system's ability to deliver the most accurate data around healthcare worker hand hygiene activity, including at the critical patient point-of-care, is a huge advancement for hospitals over the traditional method of manual observation. Healthcare facilities can now benefit from best practices in hand hygiene that are cost effective, aid in reducing the spread of healthcare-associated infections and can help save lives."

As healthcare leaders are focused on lowering costs and preventing readmissions, proper hand hygiene compliance is a critical component that is now easy to monitor and reinforce. The DebMed® GMS™ electronically tracks if healthcare workers are cleaning their hands as frequently as they should, and provides real-time feedback to staff to help improve hand hygiene compliance.  While hand hygiene compliance in healthcare remains below 40 percent, cleaning hands is still the number one way to prevent the spread of infections, particularly in healthcare settings where one in 20 patients will contract a healthcare-associated infection, resulting in 99,000 deaths a year in the U.S. alone, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The DebMed GMS utilizes state-of-the art electronics that capture hand cleaning activity from soap and hand sanitizer dispensers, and can be deployed with either DebMed dispensers or a hospital's existing dispensers.  By offering a flexible range of deployment options, hospitals and other healthcare facilities that may have a preference for one hand hygiene product over another are able to implement the most reliable method of electronic hand hygiene monitoring while still using the skin care products of their choice.

"The DebMed system offers monitoring based on the highest clinical standard of the WHO Five Moments, compliance rates calculated using an evidence-based, statistically valid algorithm that takes into account patient census and degree of patient care, the ability to track compliance at the point-of-care, and the option to work with any soap or sanitizer dispensers, making it the most comprehensive hand hygiene solution available on the market today," said Heather McLarney, vice president of marketing, DebMed. "It is simply a better way to track hand hygiene compliance in a cost-effective way, and we are excited to expand our reach in 2014 to help hospitals provide improved patient safety and quality of care."

DebMed has created the system to promote a high level of employee acceptance because it monitors compliance at the group level rather than requiring staff to wear badges that track their individual compliance. Group monitoring encourages team collaboration, and is recognized by many infection preventionists and industry thought leaders as being more effective in changing behavior than tracking individuals' actions, which can be seen by staff as punitive or an invasion of privacy. The system also includes an online toolkit of educational materials on proper hand hygiene protocols and customizable reminder tools to help healthcare facilities drive and reinforce behavior change. 

The expanded distribution model for the DebMed GMS takes effect in April 2014.

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), winner of the 2013 Frost & Sullivan Hand Hygiene Solutions New Product Innovation Award, is the world's first group monitoring system to report hand hygiene compliance rates based on the World Health Organization's (WHO) "Five Moments for Hand Hygiene" and to date has recorded more than 35 million hand hygiene events.  The 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). For more information, 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 US operations based in Charlotte, NC, Deb Group is comprised of 22 companies operating in 18 countries.  For more information, visit www.debgroup.com.

SOURCE DebMed