Hand hygiene compliance system

A system for monitoring hand hygiene among a number of human attendants in a facility, comprising:

• a plurality of zone beacons mounted within respective zones of the facility and each transmitting zone identifying data respective thereto,
• a number of wearable hygiene monitoring devices, each to be worn by an active attendant and comprising:
• a receiver;
• an alerting unit;
• a memory having stored therein a group of hygiene status subroutines;
• and
• a processor operable to
• receive within a given zone said zone identifying data respective thereto via said receiver,
• select a particular hygiene status subroutine from said stored hygiene status subroutines according thereto;
• execute the selected hygiene status subroutine and, upon user non-compliance with said selected hygiene status subroutine;
• activate said alerting unit.

A hygiene monitoring unit wearable by an attendant in a facility for communicating with one or more wearable sensors each communicating sensory data, the unit comprising:

• a receiver;
• an alerting unit;
• a memory having stored therein a group of predetermined attendant activity feature data sets and a group of hygiene status subroutines associated therewith;
• and
• a processor operable to:
• receive sensory data via said receiver from said one or more wearable sensors;
• compare said sensory data with said stored attendant activity feature data sets to identify a current attendant activity therefrom and associated hygiene status subroutine associated therewith;
• execute said identified associated hygiene status subroutine;
• and
• upon user non-compliance with said executed subroutine, activating said alerting unit.

A system for monitoring hand hygiene among a number of human attendants in a facility, comprising:

• a number of wearable sensor sets to be worn by respective attendants while in the facility and each set comprising one or more wearable sensors operable to communicate sensory data responsive to attendant activity;
• a number of hygiene monitoring units to be worn by said respective attendants, each of said units comprising:
• a receiver;
• an alerting unit;
• a memory having stored therein a group of predetermined attendant activity feature data sets and a group of hygiene status subroutines associated therewith;
• and
• a processor operable to:
• receive sensory data via said receiver from said one or more wearable sensors;
• compare said sensory data with said stored attendant activity feature data sets to identify a current attendant activity therefrom and associated hygiene status subroutine associated therewith;
• execute said identified associated hygiene status subroutine;
• and
• upon user non-compliance with said executed subroutine, activating said alerting unit.

A method of promoting hand hygiene compliance by a user in a facility via a wearable zone detector to be worn by the user, the wearable zone detector including an on-board control unit, a memory, a receiver and an alert unit, the method comprising:

• a) receiving via the receiver a zone identifier signal from a zone within the facility, said zone identifier signal providing a zone identifier and a zone type of the zone to the on-board control unit;
• b) comparing the provided zone identifier with a stored zone identifier stored in the memory to determine a change of zone;
• c) responsive to determining a change of zone, starting at least one timer;
• and
• d) responsive to expiration of the at least one timer, activating an alert;
• the method further comprising, upon determining a zone change, automatically selecting via the on-board control unit one or more of said alert and said at least one timer according to said zone type identifier.