COVID-19 cases are on the rise, and now more than ever, hand hygiene compliance is key to preventing the spread of disease and protecting both staff and patients.  On average, hospitals using the Ecolab Hand Hygiene Compliance Monitoring (HHCM) System have more than doubled their sustained compliance over their baseline, meaning they are washing their hands more than twice what they were before the system was installed, which helps reduce the spread of infection and protect patients.  During this pandemic, having this technology can help save lives.

Specifically, as hospitals manage COVID-19 patients entering their doors, there are three Ecolab HHCM System features that can help current customers make key decisions around disease containment and workflow. 

1. Isolation Room Designation

This feature on the digital dashboard allows hospitals to flag specific rooms as an “isolation room” over a specific period.  It allows for rooms to be identified according to its associated infectious disease, it tracks all employees who enter the room by name, role, date/time, and also monitors the hand hygiene compliance of each healthcare worker, indicating whether they used soap or sanitizer while in the room.

Should a hospital need to convert previously unmonitored areas in order to accommodate COVID-19 patients, we ask that they please notify their Ecolab Account Executive.  We want to ensure we continue to help our customers keep healthcare workers and patients safe, while also continuing to enable them to use our isolation room protocol.  We will provide additional Bed Beacons in order to cover extended patient areas.

2. Contact Investigator Report

This report allows hospitals to view every badged employee who interacted with a specific room, during a specific timeframe. This is useful if there is an infectious disease like COVID-19 in a facility and the hospital wants to identify the healthcare workers who came into contact with a particular patient.  Having this information allows hospitals to quickly implement proper infection prevention and control measures and communicate effectively. 

3. Low Product / Low Battery Indicators

For customers leveraging our Nexa^TM Touch Free dispensers or our Phase II technology, regardless of the dispenser type, the Low Product Indicator automatically monitors hand soap and sanitizer product levels in the dispensers. When product is low, the system flags the issue to hospitals in advance so they can ensure that dispensers don’t run out of soap or sanitizer during this time when access to hand hygiene is critically important.  Additionally, the Low Battery Indicators ensures hospitals have visibility into the performance of key system components.  This way hospitals can replace batteries quickly in order to keep hand hygiene efforts running optimally.  The system also provides a Dispenser Rotation Guidelines report that highlights high use dispensers, regardless of type, and suggests when they should be refilled.

During this unprecedented time, Ecolab deeply appreciates all that hospitals and healthcare workers are doing to keep patients and fellow staff safe.  And our team is here to help. Whether it’s learning more about how to leverage insights from the Ecolab Hand Hygiene Compliance Monitoring System or working with your Account Executive to troubleshoot, you can count on the Ecolab team to support you and ensure you can leverage our system to its full potential during this pandemic.

Please set up time with your Account Executive to discuss how these insights can support your work.