ECJ EUROPEAN Cleaning Journal

Portable thermal imaging could be used to monitor and assess hand hygiene among healthcare professionals, according to US researchers.

Studies have shown that healthcare workers often fail to thoroughly clean their thumbs and fingertips. Thermal imaging cameras could be used to highlight any missed areas of the hands and help to improve health professionals' techniques.

"Effective hand hygiene is recognised as the single most important act to prevent the transmission of potentially pathogenic microbes in the healthcare setting," said study author and epidemiologist Dr John Boyce. "However, there is no widely adopted method for assessing the effectiveness of healthcare professionals' hand hygiene technique."

Using an infrared camera attached to a smartphone, Boyce and fellow author Dr Richard Martinello gathered thermal images from the dominant hands of 12 healthcare professionals. They then recorded baseline readings of the mid-palm area and fingertips and took second readings after the participants had used an alcohol-based hand rub.

The thermal images revealed significant decreases in temperature in the volunteers' mid-palm, finger and thumb-tip readings after they had performed hand hygiene, confirming that the infrared camera could detect colour changes when there was a drop in hand temperature.

The researchers also discovered that when participants sanitised their hands without including their thumbs, a lack of colorimetric change in the thumbs was visible in the thermal images.

Linda Dickey, president of the US Association for Professionals in infection Control and Epidemiology, said the study findings were exciting. "They are the first to evaluate a new tool that might help infection preventionists to assess the quality of hand hygiene during educational sessions and routine patient care," she said.