At St. Mary’s we’re serious about infection control. Recently, Meritech— a leading company providing technology for infection control donated an automatic hand washing machine to the hospital. The device was placed on the Toddlers Unit and provides superior infection prevention by removing 99.98% of dangerous pathogens from hands in just 12 seconds.
“Proper hand hygiene is proven to be integral to infection prevention,” noted Marianne Pavia, St. Mary’s Director of Infection Prevention. “Because the duration of the washing process varies from person to person, using an automatic system with a built-in timer for hand washing removes the subjectivity of hand washing.”
To date, St. Mary’s has seen significant reduction of infection occurrence; this includes a 62% reduction in central line- associated bloodstream infections (CLABSI). The Infection Control Team continues to implement numerous prevention tactics to keep St. Mary’s Kids as healthy as possible. This includes a real-time electronic hand hygiene monitoring system that tracks the use of hand sanitizing devices as well as industry-leading protocols to reduce both central line and respiratory infections.
The Infection Control Team continues to implement numerous prevention tactics to keep St. Mary’s Kids as healthy as possible. This includes a real-time electronic hand hygiene monitoring system that tracks when each hand sanitizing device has been used and allows daily access to dashboards and reports on the device’s usage.
Marianne also added, “We are working to foster a culture change in which all staff ‘own’ the problem of Healthcare associated infections (HAIs) in their patients, prioritize the need for hand hygiene and other precautions to prevent these infections.”
