Apr 15 2010
The HyGreen Hand Hygiene System from Xhale Innovation has been declared the winner of the 2010 Medical Design Excellence Awards competition.
The HyGreen Hand Hygiene System
A multidisciplinary third-party jurors panel, having expertise related to industrial design, biomedical engineering, medicine and diagnostics and human factors, had reviewed all entries comprehensively. The award is considered among the most prestigious awards of the medical device industry.
HyGreen was named for the award by ROBRADY design that is the system’s product development partner. Canon Communications LLC organizes and presents this award competition. This awards program recognizes medical product design-based contributions and developments. Entries are judged based on their engineering and design features, which includes innovative material usage, user-based functions that enhance the delivery of healthcare and transform customary medical practices and attitudes, features for patient benefits, and the product’s ability in overcoming engineering and design challenges for meeting the clinical objectives of the product.
The revolutionary HyGreen hand hygiene system will enable hospitals to reduce the healthcare-related infections that amount to about 2 million every year. The award represents the most recent success for HyGreen, a market-defining product. Besides this award, HyGreen has also won the Popular Science Best of What’s New Award for 2009.
Richard Allen, CEO of Xhale Innovations, informed that this award highlights the critical work of medical device firms for improving the functionality and design of products contributing to better patient outcomes as well as helping out the medical staff at the forefront of providing medical care.
Winners of the 2010 Medical Design Excellence Award winners will be honored at the Medical Design & Manufacturing (MD&M) East Conference and Exposition, on June 9, 2010, in the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center of the New York City.
Being a wireless-based system the HyGreen does not disturb the workflows of busy healthcare staff. The healthcare staff use alcohol-based sanitizers like gel or soap to clean their hands. After cleaning, hands are positioned below a HyGreen sensor which then sniffs the presence of alcohol, and accordingly transmits wireless-based all clear message to the healthcare worker’s badge. This message is searched by the wireless monitor placed over the bed of the patient. The badge will vibrate when the message is absent and the healthcare worker is reminded to wash his hands. Such interactions are recorded, depicting who washes hands and who does not wash.
HyGreen was designed for complying with the hand hygiene guidelines laid down by leading experts in the industry like the Joint Commission, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA), and the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC).