Results of DebMed Electronic Hand Hygiene Compliance Study to Be Unveiled at ICPIC International Conference

CHARLOTTE, N.C., June 13, 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 announced that executives from DebMed and Greenville, South Carolina-based Greenville Healthcare System have been selected to present at the Innovation Academy of the International Consortium for Prevention and Infection Control (ICPIC) 2013. The event is scheduled to take place June 25-28, 2013 in Geneva, Switzerland.

"Healthcare leaders from around the world will learn why the DebMed Group Monitoring System is the most effective system for increasing hand hygiene compliance and is the only system that can electronically monitor and report on the WHO Five Moments for Hand Hygiene," said Paul Alper, vice president strategy and business development, DebMed. "Increasing compliance will result in more effective infection control, prevention and improved patient safety."

DebMed's ICPIC presentation will chronicle validation of the electronic hand hygiene monitoring and reporting system based on the five moments.  The system relies on a patented algorithm to pre-determine hand hygiene opportunities—the number of times workers should wash their hands. The system then calculates a hospital unit's hand hygiene compliance by dividing actual hand hygiene events by the anticipated number of hand hygiene opportunities. Its combination of monitoring and reporting on the group, versus the individual, and ability to provide data based on a pre-determined number of opportunities in correlation with the WHO Five Moments is what contributes to the unique success of the system. It is also the only system that provides the ability to monitor hand hygiene compliance at the critical point-of-care, such as at the patient's bedside.

"Electronic monitoring of hand hygiene compliance using the WHO Five Moments method offers healthcare organizations the most accurate and actionable hand hygiene compliance data available today," said Alper.  "Such data is indispensable as the global healthcare community works to ensure patient safety, improve quality of care and prevent and control infections." 

The more traditional and easily measured "in/out" method of hand hygiene compliance teaches healthcare workers to clean their hands as they enter and exit patient rooms, creating a potential for re-contamination by only accounting for half of all hand hygiene opportunities. The WHO Five Moments method is a higher clinical standard as it promotes hand hygiene at additional moments such as the highly important moments two and three - before a procedure or after body fluid exposure risk - and moment five which is after touching a patient's surroundings, as well as before and after patient contact.

The Innovation Academy of ICPIC offers invited infection prevention and control experts the opportunity to deliver investigator presentations and win one of three "Innovation Awards of Excellence" decided upon by an international jury. DebMed will be competing for this award.

For more information, visit www.debmed.com.

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. 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 US 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