The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office awarded Clean Hands Safe Hands with a patent for its Natural Language Voice Reminder and its variable detection range technology.
Clean Hands Safe Hands, a Signature company of the Advanced Technology Development Center, created a wireless hand hygiene monitoring system for hospitals.
Founded in 2012 by Chris Hermann, the company helps reduce the spread of infections by providing a technology platform to remind providers without disrupting their workflow. The Natural Language Voice Reminder is a unobtrusive audio recording of a person’s voice that prompts staff members to perform hand hygiene if they forgot to do so.
“The hand hygiene monitoring intellectual property is a crowded space and I am very happy to see that our unique approach to hand hygiene monitoring is being protected by this patent,” Hermann, who is the company’s chief executive, said in a statement. “This is a testament to the hard work of our highly talented engineering team.”
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization, hand hygiene is the single most important aspect in preventing the spread of infections throughout hospitals. Roughly 1 in 25 patients acquire an infection during hospital admission, leading to nearly 1 million infections annually in the United States.
The Natural Language Voice Reminder stands out above the hospital environment’s standard beeps and alarms that are frequently ignored. In a yearlong, peer-reviewed clinical research study, the Natural Language Voice Reminder demonstrated the ability to improve hand hygiene by more than 400 percent. The variable detection range allows the Clean Hands Safe Hands system to customize based on the differences in varying hospitals, hospital units, individual rooms, and even down to the specific patient needs.