ATLANTA—June 11, 2019—In direct response to ongoing concerns about healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) and the need to improve patient safety through greater hand hygiene compliance among healthcare workers, GP PRO, a division of Georgia-Pacific and a leading provider of hygienic dispensing systems for healthcare and other industries, today introduces the SafeHaven™ Personal Hand Hygiene System. The SafeHaven system is the only personal, wearable hand hygiene monitoring solution that fits seamlessly into the clinical workflow to provide point of care hand hygiene across the entire continuum of care.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), on any given day, one in 25 hospital patients has at least one HAI, equating to 1.7 million HAIs annually in the U.S. that result in 75,000 deaths. The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) states that hands are the most common carriers of organisms and pathogens that cause HAIs and that hand hygiene is the most effective means of preventing the spread of HAIs.
“The evidence supporting the critical need for improved hand hygiene within the healthcare setting is crystal clear, so it’s quite alarming that caregivers are sanitizing their hands just 40 percent of the time,” said Amna Handley, MSN, FNP-C, APRN, CIC, director of Clinical Development with GP PRO. “But the fact of the matter is that caregivers are battling an inordinate number of competing priorities of which hand hygiene is just one. At GP PRO, we believe the way to improve hand hygiene compliance is to make it accessible at the point of care, as our SafeHaven system does.”
The SafeHaven system combines a wearable hand hygiene device with advanced cloud-based reporting and analytics. The always-present wearable device fits seamlessly into the clinical workflow, delivering an alcohol hand rub anywhere, anytime, making it nearly effortless for healthcare workers to meet the five moments of point-of-care hand hygiene recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). Bluetooth® technology credits hygiene events automatically and provides continuous real-time positive feedback that promotes increased awareness and accountability relative to evidence-based standards. The result is proven sustained hand hygiene performance.
“Clinical trials of the SafeHaven system have shown a 183 percent increase in hand hygiene events with more than six months of sustained compliance improvement,” said Handley. “This is the kind of sustained improvement in hand hygiene that will have a dramatic impact on reducing the incidence of HAIs and providing improved patient safety and better patient outcomes.”
According to Handley, these clinical trials also demonstrated a significant reduction in cross contamination events and surgical site infections, leading the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) to issue expert guidance with recommendations to improve infection prevention in operating room anesthesia services that include using a personal, wearable hand hygiene device.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), on any given day, one in 25 hospital patients has at least one HAI, equating to 1.7 million HAIs annually in the U.S. that result in 75,000 deaths. The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) states that hands are the most common carriers of organisms and pathogens that cause HAIs and that hand hygiene is the most effective means of preventing the spread of HAIs.
“The evidence supporting the critical need for improved hand hygiene within the healthcare setting is crystal clear, so it’s quite alarming that caregivers are sanitizing their hands just 40 percent of the time,” said Amna Handley, MSN, FNP-C, APRN, CIC, director of Clinical Development with GP PRO. “But the fact of the matter is that caregivers are battling an inordinate number of competing priorities of which hand hygiene is just one. At GP PRO, we believe the way to improve hand hygiene compliance is to make it accessible at the point of care, as our SafeHaven system does.”
The SafeHaven system combines a wearable hand hygiene device with advanced cloud-based reporting and analytics. The always-present wearable device fits seamlessly into the clinical workflow, delivering an alcohol hand rub anywhere, anytime, making it nearly effortless for healthcare workers to meet the five moments of point-of-care hand hygiene recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). Bluetooth® technology credits hygiene events automatically and provides continuous real-time positive feedback that promotes increased awareness and accountability relative to evidence-based standards. The result is proven sustained hand hygiene performance.
“Clinical trials of the SafeHaven system have shown a 183 percent increase in hand hygiene events with more than six months of sustained compliance improvement,” said Handley. “This is the kind of sustained improvement in hand hygiene that will have a dramatic impact on reducing the incidence of HAIs and providing improved patient safety and better patient outcomes.”
According to Handley, these clinical trials also demonstrated a significant reduction in cross contamination events and surgical site infections, leading the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) to issue expert guidance with recommendations to improve infection prevention in operating room anesthesia services that include using a personal, wearable hand hygiene device.