BioVigil is saving patient lives and also helps your staff stay healthy. The latest published study in American Journal of Infection Control (AJIC) from Lutheran Medical Center of Wheat Ridge, CO shows 40% reduction in overtime hours after implementing BioVigil by reducing staff sick time.
When Lutheran Medical Center of Wheat Ridge, CO, implemented BioVigil in their Emergency Department, they were confident their hand hygiene compliance would improve. They chose to install the hand hygiene awareness system in their heavily trafficked ED because monitoring hand hygiene through direct observation in this fast-paced area had proved to be very challenging. With over 70,000 patient visits a year, it wasn’t possible for their Infection Prevention team to get a meaningful sample of how often staff were cleaning their hands, nor could they effectively intervene in all cases to correct when hand hygiene wasn’t done.
Shortly after implementing BioVigil in the summer of 2016, Lutheran Medical Center was collecting objective data on over 150,000 hand hygiene events each month—and achieving 95% hand hygiene compliance! As they entered the flu season in the fall of 2016, they casually observed that staff seemed to be calling in sick with less frequency. Sure enough, when they reviewed the staff sick time data and overtime hours, they were both shocked and pleased to see that staff were getting sick less often compared to prior flu seasons. With no other interventions in place, they concluded that improved hand washing was resulting in a healthier workforce. Healthy and happy employees always lead to better outcomes!