Ann Arbor healthcare startup aims to save lives with hand hygiene technology
ANN ARBOR, Mich. (CBS DETROIT) - BioVigil, a healthcare startup in Ann Arbor, has developed an automated hand hygiene compliance system to decrease healthcare-associated infections.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 75,000 people on average die each year from infections they contracted while hospitalized.
BioVigil's mission is to drastically reduce that figure by reminding healthcare workers to wash or sanitize their hands.
CEO Sanjay Gupta said hand disinfecting compliance can be as low as 40% in hospitals.
"We have close to 600 million opportunities with our customers, and the sustained hygiene compliance is 97%," he said. "So, from day one, we are able to take the compliance from 40% to 97%. And because of that infections drop."
The system works by using sensors called "beacons" installed in hospital rooms over doorways and hand hygiene areas which individually monitor each patient-facing healthcare professional using a badge.
"That badge knows if you have performed hand hygiene or not," said Gupta. "So, if you have not performed hand hygiene, then it will remind you through a tone or a vibration. It will remind you multiple times. And we also have (noticed), because of those reminders, the healthcare compliance truly goes up."
The badges give real-time feedback to the wearer and those they interact with, including changing to green when clean or red when the person has failed to properly clean their hands.
Biovigil has deployed the technology in more than 50 hospitals in the US and abroad and says it reduces healthcare-associated infections by 83%.
"We are in a couple of children's hospitals and they tell us that this is a lifesaver," said Gupta. "That gives so much comfort to the families that their patients, their kids, are taken care of properly."
"It's really one of the key things that everybody learns in health care and that everybody practices," said Infection Control Director at Michigan Medicine Amanda Valyko. "Frankly, at least 100 times during a shift. So, it's constantly happening and really kind of the foundation of preventing infections in hospitals."
The badges are assembled in Washtenaw County. In Saline, team members complete assembly in a lab at Biovigil's headquarters.
Gupta said the system could be adapted to other settings like schools, cruise ships and restaurants in the future.
