Cameras with motion sensors will be installed to monitor hand hygiene in hospital corridors, near patient beds in clean rooms and in operating rooms, reports The Wall Street Journal.
Video images will give a blurry picture of figures and faces, but computer algorithms can reveal the use of a dispenser with a disinfectant and the movement of hands. This practice should increase the awareness of staff and visitors regarding sterility in clean rooms.
Even experienced doctors and nurses can miss an important step in routine examination, especially when they are occupied with hundreds of similar small-scale tasks. To solve this problem, a series of studies with artificial intelligence on the recognition of certain movements was carried out.
Researchers installed sensors over dispensers in the emergency room at the Children's Hospital Lucille Packard in California. They collected thousands of images and commented about 80 percent of them, noting that someone pretended and did not sanitize their hands when entering or leaving a clean room.
The commented images were introduced into the response algorithm. It was important to teach the computer to recognize the movements of washing hands with and without detergent.
The algorithm then applied to images collected at the Intensive Care Unit in Salt Lake City. Although the corridor of the hospital was different from the first, the algorithm determined manual disinfection in about 85% of cases. When the algorithm was additionally trained in images captured by Intermountain Healthcare, its accuracy jumped to 98 percent.
One of the ideas for using the algorithm includes audio notification over dispensers before the visitor enters the clean room. Another idea is to create a digital instrument panel to track the correspondence between using a dispenser, a faucet and a door to a clean room.
If people know about control, they behave more organized, the researchers say.
In addition, the control of artificial intelligence over cleanroom cleaning protocols will help determine whether current hygiene practices effectively fight infections.
The company WestMedGroup is engaged in the design of heating, ventilation and conditioning systems for hospitals and installs highly efficient air treatment plants for clean rooms.is engaged in designing and construction of clean rooms.
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