Cleanzine: your weekly cleaning and hygiene industry newsletter 18th April 2024 Issue no. 1110
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SwipeSense acquires mobile application for recording hand hygiene observations
SwipeSense, a Chicago-based healthcare technology company, announced this week the acquisition of iScrub Lite, a leading mobile application for hand hygiene observation. Originally conceived and developed by the Computational Epidemiology Research Group at the University of Iowa, iScrub Lite was launched to simplify the time-consuming and error-prone process of recording hand hygiene observations and sharing the results with healthcare professionals.
As part of its commitment to helping hospitals save more lives, SwipeSense reached an agreement with the University of Iowa to take ownership of iScrub Lite and will now be responsible for maintaining and ensuring the free application remains available to the infection control community.
"We want to provide hospital staff with innovative technology to further their journey towards a hassle-free hand hygiene improvement program," says Yuri Malina, co-founder and vice president of product at SwipeSense. "Relying on pen and paper during direct observation is known to fall short in many regards, so it is imperative that electronic tools are readily available for hospitals around the world.
"Our acquisition of iScrub Lite supports this initiative by allowing staff to more easily capture compliance data, free of transcription errors."
Dr. Philip Polgreen, associate professor of internal medicine and epidemiology at the University of Iowa, says his team created iScrub to serve the infection control community. "However, the costs of updating the service have increased," he reveals.
Alberto Maria Segre, Ph.D., chair of Computer Science at Iowa and codirector, with Polgreen, of the Computational Epidemiology Research Group, says that without the partnership with SwipeSense, iScrub might have ceased to exist.
"With SwipeSense agreeing to maintain, add new features, and improve iScrub, it will continue to be available to the infection control community," Segre explains.
With World Hand Hygiene Day right around the corner (Saturday, 5th May, 2018), healthcare institutions are especially focused on raising awareness for optimal hand hygiene practices. In fact, the US Centers for Disease Control & Prevention has recommended iScrub Lite as a part of its 'Clean Hands Count' campaign resources. The application has become a critical tool for infection preventionists around the world, as evidenced by its several thousand users.
SwipeSense is helping hospitals reduce Hospital-Associated Infections, by providing them with reliable hand-hygiene data and change management opportunities. Beyond hand hygiene, the SwipeSense platform powers critical location-aware applications, including asset tracking and nurse rounding. Armed with accurate measurement and insights via an intuitive dashboard, leading hospitals are using SwipeSense to improve operational efficiency and deliver a safer patient experience.
T: (312) 772-6942
W: www.swipesense.com
3rd May 2018