Stronger wearable developed to keep pace with the growing demands of patient safety market.

In response to market demand for a stronger and more reliable hand hygiene compliance monitoring solution, Vitalacy, Inc., today announced the release of the new Gen4 SmartSensor, a smarter, faster and more powerful device to monitor and improve safety initiatives with healthcare partners.

Designed to capture hand hygiene compliance data and to provide real-time reminders to perform hand hygiene at critical patient care moments, the new Vitalacy Gen4 SmartSensor has built-in features for future products currently in Vitalacy’s development pipeline. In addition to containing improved hardware and firmware, the Sensor now includes a gyroscope and animated screen and provides longer battery life. These features bring more value to healthcare providers looking to improve quality and safety measures that save lives.

“Our fourth-generation wearable is a more powerful and durable sensor, designed and manufactured by our Vitalacy team of engineers and developers,” said Vitalacy VP of Engineering Dylan Humphrey. Many of these enhancements were the result of direct client and user feedback using the Gen3 SmartSensor in the healthcare environment. “This new device was developed with future looking applications in mind including care provider messaging, duress buttons, and patient fall alerts,” Humphrey added.

The Gen4 SmartSensor is placed inside a band worn on the user’s wrist or a clip holder worn on the user’s upper torso. IoT-enabled devices across the facility monitor dispenser usage and the entry and exit of patient rooms in relation to recent hand washes. The device uses Bluetooth to monitor hand hygiene behavior such as compliance and wash duration and reminds staff to wash at the point of care if they forget and to wash longer if the wash is too short. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends washing hands for at least 20 seconds with soap and water or with hand sanitizer of at least 60% alcohol if soap is not available.

The Gen4 SmartSensor is the latest improvement to the Vitalacy’s Patient Safety Platform – a suite of products including hand hygiene compliance monitoring, workflow and nursing rounding monitoring, contact tracing, and a fall risk alert. The platform is capable of monitoring workflow in near real-time, allowing healthcare enterprises to monitor rounding, caregiver fatigue and contact tracing. These innovative measures help decrease infection risk and improve the patient experience.

1 in 31 patients suffer from a healthcare-acquired infection (HAI) each day

On any given day, about 1 in 31 hospital patients has at least once HAI, according to the CDC. The World Health Organization states:

“hand hygiene is one of the most effective actions you can take to reduce the spread of pathogens and prevent infections, including the COVID-19 virus.”

A lack of real-time feedback and coaching about hand hygiene was one of the major barriers to hand hygiene compliance, according to survey results presented by a hospital network at the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) 2022 Annual Conference.

To meet Leapfrog Group standards, healthcare organizations must complete at least 100 observations of hand hygiene opportunities per month per unit, with the observations occurring across all days of the week and all shifts. Because of the difficulty, expense and inherent bias of doing these observations through direct human monitoring, organizations are increasingly turning to electronic hand hygiene monitoring solutions to meet Leapfrog’s criteria.

“Vitalacy is constantly innovating, leading the market with first-in-class solutions to meet the growing needs of their clients,” said Vitalacy CEO and Cofounder Janel Nour-Omid. “This recent innovation improves Vitalacy’s suite of products and demonstrates an investment in future development and integration capabilities with the company’s offerings.”