The Medical City Significantly Reduces HAIs
The Medical City in the Philippines significantly reduced hospital-acquired infections by 48% and tripled hand hygiene compliance within three months in its ICU through the implementation of Excelion Technology’s Real-Time Hospital Measurement System™, which uses WHO guidelines, real-time locating technology with infrared tags, and Lean process transformation to monitor and improve hand hygiene adherence among healthcare workers.
The Medical City (TMC), a leading JCI-accredited healthcare organization in the Philippines, has successfully deployed a location-enabled, real-time hand hygiene compliance tracking solution. Adhering to the World Health Organization (WHO) five moments for hand hygiene is recognized as the best way to reduce hospital-acquired infections (HAIs). However, maintaining hand hygiene compliance among healthcare workers has been challenging in many facilities due to the lack of real-time monitoring and corrective action. TMC has addressed this by implementing a Real-Time Hospital Measurement System™ (RTHMS™).
Excelion Technology Inc. and CenTrak®, Inc. enabled The Medical City to triple its hand hygiene compliance by the third month of a 22-bed ICU project. As a result, HAIs in the ICU decreased by 48% compared to the same period the previous year. Additionally, TMC saw significant reductions in the average length of patient stay. These improvements were achieved through the deployment of Excelion’s Real-Time Hospital Measurement System™ (RTHMS™).
The Real-Time Hospital Measurement System™ integrates Excelion’s proprietary Accreditrack™ software with Lean process transformation consulting and real-time locating technology. Hand hygiene compliance is measured using WHO guidelines, and TMC’s adherence can now be tracked, aggregated, and displayed in real-time through the Accreditrack™ software suite. Hand hygiene events are measured using CenTrak’s Second Generation Infrared (Gen2IR™) tags worn by caregivers, with information relayed wirelessly to the Accreditrack™ system for real-time analysis. If a caregiver misses a hand hygiene opportunity, an audible alert on their tag provides immediate feedback. To ensure lasting cultural change, Excelion also applies Lean Healthcare methodology to map and transform TMC’s hand hygiene compliance procedures for improved outcomes.
Dr. Jose Acuin, Medical Quality Improvement Director at The Medical City, stated that the installation of advanced technologies ensures the safety of patients and staff, further strengthening TMC’s reputation as a leading medical destination in the Philippines.
Nestor Cruz, CEO of Excelion Technology, highlighted the collaboration with The Medical City and the use of CenTrak’s Gen2IR location infrastructure as key to delivering the enterprise hand hygiene compliance solution. The success in the ICU has led to the expansion of the Real-Time Hospital Measurement System™ to TMC’s Acute Care Stroke Unit (ACSU) as part of a broader infection control initiative.
About The Medical City
The Medical City (TMC) is a tertiary care hospital in the Philippines with over forty years of experience in hospital operation and administration. Its healthcare complex in Ortigas Avenue, Pasig City, serves approximately 40,000 in-patients and 400,000 out-patients annually. TMC has a medical staff of over 1,000 physicians and 2,200 allied medical, administrative, and support personnel. The Ortigas hospital is a hub for 17 satellite outpatient clinics and 4 other hospitals in the provinces and Guam. TMC is recognized for pioneering innovations such as robotic-assisted surgery, stem cell therapy, leukemia and lymphoma management, customized wellness, liver transplantation, and telecardiology. TMC is accredited by the Joint Commission International (JCI).
About Excelion Technology
Excelion Technology Inc. provides the Real-Time Hospital Measurement System™ (RTHMS™) for the healthcare industry. Combining the Accreditrack™ software suite, sensing system deployments, and Lean process improvement expertise, Excelion enables automated measurement of key hospital performance indicators. The system provides continuous visibility into processes such as hand hygiene compliance, infection control, and patient flow, driving measurable and sustainable change.
About CenTrak
CenTrak® is a provider of precise, versatile, and cost-effective location solutions for healthcare. Its Clinical-Grade Visibility™ platform delivers accuracy, speed, performance, and power-efficiency, making it a valuable technology investment. CenTrak’s Gen2IR™ technology provides certainty-based location data, essential for workflow and healthcare management applications. CenTrak is deployed at healthcare facilities worldwide.
Related
Measuring Hand Hygiene Compliance with Electronic Monitoring
The article discusses the limitations of traditional manual direct observation for measuring hand hygiene compliance among healthcare workers, highlighting its labor-intensive nature, low coverage, and the Hawthorne Effect that inflates compliance rates, and introduces advanced Real-Time Location Systems (RTLS) like CenTrak that automatically monitor hand hygiene events, provide real-time reminders, and deliver actionable insights to improve compliance and reduce healthcare-associated infections.
Did You Wash Your Hands?
The article emphasizes the critical role of proper hand hygiene in preventing healthcare-associated infections (HAIs), highlighting how real-time location systems (RTLS) with staff badges can provide timely reminders to healthcare workers, improve compliance monitoring, and enable data-driven workflow improvements to enhance patient safety and meet regulatory standards.
Hand Hygiene Compliance at Denver Health Medical Center
Denver Health Medical Center enhanced its hand hygiene compliance monitoring by implementing CenTrak’s Electronic Compliance Monitoring technology in April 2016, which provided objective, continuous, and location-based data across all shifts, overcoming the limitations of traditional direct observation methods and enabling healthcare workers to improve adherence through personalized performance feedback.
Electronic Hand Hygiene Monitoring Systems for Hospitals
Electronic hand hygiene monitoring systems, such as CenTrak's, use RTLS staff badges to automatically and continuously track hand hygiene compliance in hospitals, reducing healthcare-associated infections by over 40%, saving more than $1 million annually, eliminating the inaccuracies and labor costs of manual audits, and providing actionable data to improve staff adherence and patient safety.
The Possibility of Eliminating HAIs Using RTLS
Healthcare-associated infections (HAIs), which affect about one in 31 hospital patients daily and include types such as CLABSIs, CAUTIs, SSIs, and VAP, result from inadequate hygiene and pose serious health and financial risks, but can be mitigated through comprehensive infection control measures and the use of real-time location system (RTLS) technology to enhance prevention and hospital operational insights.
Implementing Hand Hygiene Compliance in Hospitals
The article discusses the critical role of improving hand hygiene to reduce hospital-acquired infections, highlighting the limitations of traditional observation methods and advocating for the implementation of automated compliance monitoring technologies like real-time location systems (RTLS) that track staff hand hygiene events via sensor-enabled badges to enhance accuracy, reduce labor, and support hospital protocols.