{"id":3230,"date":"2014-10-11T09:43:19","date_gmt":"2014-10-11T14:43:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/?p=3230"},"modified":"2014-10-14T09:51:39","modified_gmt":"2014-10-14T14:51:39","slug":"electronic-monitoring-reveals-poor-handwashing-among-hospital-patients","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/electronic-monitoring-reveals-poor-handwashing-among-hospital-patients\/","title":{"rendered":"Electronic monitoring reveals poor handwashing among hospital patients<img src=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/canada_flag_icon_small.gif\">"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_3232\" style=\"width: 360px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/image-ptag.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3232\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3232\" src=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/image-ptag.jpg\" alt=\"Using ultrasonic devices like these to monitor handwashing in hospital patients, researchers have found that hospital patients usually don\u2019t wash their hands when using the bathroom. (Photo credit: Sonitor, Inc.)\" width=\"350\" height=\"168\" srcset=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/image-ptag.jpg 350w, http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/image-ptag-300x144.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-3232\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Using ultrasonic devices like these to monitor handwashing in hospital patients, researchers have found that hospital patients usually don\u2019t wash their hands when using the bathroom. (Photo credit: Sonitor, Inc.)<\/p><\/div>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">A new system for monitoring handwashing has revealed that patients in hospitals only wash their hands about 30 per cent of the time while using the washroom.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The study used electronic transponders attached to hospital bracelets and soap and hand sanitizer dispensers; by picking up ultrasonic signals from these devices, researchers could track who was washing their hands and when.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">In a study of 12,000 bathroom visits by over 200 patients, researchers found that handwashing took place only 30 per cent of the time. Better handwashing practices could reduce the spread of hospital-acquired infections, such as MRSA or C. difficile.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.jstor.org\/discover\/10.1086\/678419?uid=3739400&amp;uid=2&amp;uid=3737720&amp;uid=4&amp;sid=21104814244637\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Original research paper<\/span><\/a>\u00a0published in the journal\u00a0<em>Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology\u00a0<\/em>on\u00a0<strong>October 2,\u00a02014<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><em><strong>Names and affiliations of selected\u00a0authors<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<h4 dir=\"ltr\">Jocelyn Srigley, McMaster University,\u00a0Ontario<\/h4>\n<h4 dir=\"ltr\">Colin Furness, Epidemiologist and Director of Research, Infonaut<\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A new system for monitoring handwashing has revealed that patients in hospitals only wash their hands about 30 per cent of the time while using the washroom. The study used electronic transponders attached to hospital bracelets and soap and hand sanitizer dispensers; by picking up ultrasonic signals from these devices, researchers could track who was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3232,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[51,1647,53,50,476],"class_list":["post-3230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-paper-of-interest","tag-health","tag-human-behaviour","tag-medicine","tag-ontario","tag-public-health"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/image-ptag.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4DqbN-Q6","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3230"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3235,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3230\/revisions\/3235"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}