Spy cams installed in NY hospital bathrooms to monitor handwashing

(NaturalNews) Here goes the last great American sanctuary from intrusion- bathrooms with spy cams. Going to the bathroom has now been monitored in a hospital in NY where sensors were placed on the doors to identify workers entering and exiting and cameras placed to view sinks to insure proper hand hygiene. We are one step away from the all intrusive commode-cam to see who wipes their butt in the right direction.

Granted, this was instituted to evaluate hand hygiene compliance which is critical in a hospital. But this Big Brother system also does shift compliance analysis to report the last two shifts in LED readouts covering the statistics for “hygiene events.” Is this a contest between shifts? But Big Brother also has a word to say as the LEDs also offer “encouragement” to anyone passing by. The good news is that the number of “hand washing incidents” reportedly went from 60 percent to 81 percent in a few months. That’s nice.

Nosocomialinfection:A nosocomial

infection (nos-oh-koh-mi-al), also

known as a hospital-acquired infection 

or HAI, is an infection whose

development is favoured by a hospital

environment, such as one acquired by

a patient during a hospital visit or one

developing among hospital staff. Such

infections include fungal and bacterial

infections and are aggravated by the

reduced resistance of individual patients.

The feedback for compliance is called “observations.” But how effective is it when the actual hand-hygiene compliance rates during these hospital shifts ranged from a low 30.8 percent to still-too-low 91.2 percent? The author of this Medscape report out May 30th states that “…hand-hygiene compliance is probably much lower than most visual observations would predict…”

So this helps with the private bathroom hand-washing security check but what about washing hands before and after patient contact? That was not monitored in this hospital and this is where you come in. When the doc, nurse, intern or candy striper comes in, you have the perfect right to ask them to wash their hands before touching you. As they leave the room, feel free to mention to them that they failed to wash their hands after the exam or procedure.

Not a new struggle

Over the last 30 years there have been countless efforts to change poor hand hygiene in hospitals. In spite of this, poor hygiene continues to contribute to high rates of infections acquired in hospitals, medical clinics and other health care settings. According to theWorld Health Organization, hygiene related infections affect as some 1.7 million patients a year in the United States alone.