Why Hand Hygiene Matters - Tamás Haidegger - The #HCBiz Show!
Hand hygiene is the number one line of defense when it comes to controlling the spread of healthcare-associated infections (HAI) and infectious disease. Since we know that antibiotic and antimicrobial resistance is on the rise, and few new antibiotics are being developed, it becomes exceedingly important that we prevent people from acquiring these infections in the first place.
We know that hand-washing is effective when done right, and we know that when monitored, we do it right. In fact, right after we recorded this podcast the Jama Network showed us that patient mortality decreased during unannounced accreditation surveys at US Hospitals. The point is that you can expect what you inspect.
This conversation is way more fun than you think it’s going to be and very informative. I hope you enjoy!
Tamás Haidegger received his M.Sc. degrees from the Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME) in Electrical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering in 2006 and 2008, respectively. His Ph.D. thesis (2011) was based on a neurosurgical robot he helped develop when he was a visiting scholar at the Johns Hopkins University. His main field of research is control/teleoperation of surgical robots, image-guided therapy, and supportive medical technologies.
Currently, he is an associate professor at the Óbuda University, serving as the deputy director of the Antal Bejczy Center for Intelligent Robotic. Besides, he is a research area manager at the Austrian Center for Medical Innovation and Technology (ACMIT), working on minimally invasive surgical simulation and training, medical robotics and usability/workflow assessment through ontologies.
Tamás is the co-founder and CEO of a university spin-off—HandInScan—focusing on objective hand hygiene control in the medical environment. They are working together with Semmelweis University, the University Hospital Geneva and the World Health Organization POPS group.
HandInScan Zrt. is a health-tech company focusing on the unmet and critical need of reducing healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) that causes more than 250,000 unnecessary deaths in the developed world and 1.4 million cases a day worldwide.
HandInScan was formed in 2012 as a spin-off of the Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME). As a spinoff project, HandInScan was incubated at Demola from 2013. Original founders were private individuals from the engineering development team, aiming to create a device to objectively control hand hygiene performance of medical staff. The innovation and the technology transfer received numerous international awards. After the initial successful validation with early prototypes of the Hand-in-Scan device, the application domains were significantly extended to target clean manufacturing sites, the food industry and high-end tourism. The founders’ core team skill set included biomedical engineering, infection prevention and control, electrical engineering, computer science, finance, marketing and project management. The company exclusively licensed the relevant patent from BME, entitled “Method and apparatus for hand disinfection quality control (HU P1000523)”.
HandInScan has a key partnership agreement with its regional development partner, the Austrian Center for Medical Innovation and Technology (ACMIT), and continued working together with researchers at BME.
Tamás also mentioned the World Health Organization’s Hand Hygiene day on May 5th, 2017. Learn more here.