Hygiene monitoring system

A method of monitoring hygiene compliance, the method comprising:

• receiving information relating to a contamination zone,
• receiving information uniquely identifying an item,
• receiving information indicative of a location of the item,
• assigning a status of ‘contaminated’ to the item if the location information indicates entry of the item into the contamination zone,
• receiving information relating to a cleaning device,
• evaluating the information relating to the cleaning device and the information relating to the item to determine whether to change the status of the item, and
• storing instances of status information in a memory over time,
• evaluating stored instances of status information to determine compliance with a predetermined hygiene policy.

A program located in a recordable medium, the program comprising instructions for monitoring hygiene executable by a computing device to:

• access a predetermined hygiene policy,
• receive usage information indicative of use of a cleaning device to clean an item,
• receive identification information uniquely identifying an item,
• receive location information indicative of a location of an item,
• receive contact information indicative of an instance of contact between a first item and a second item,
• evaluate the usage information, identification information, location information, and contact information to detect compliance or non-compliance with the hygiene policy, and
• generate an output indicative of such compliance or non-compliance.