One of Gainesville’s newest innovations has earned praise on the national stage.
Popular Science, a monthly magazine with a circulation of about 1.3 million, has recognized Xhale Innovations Inc.’s HyGreen system with the 2009 Best of What’s New award. The award, the magazine’s top honor, is given to 100 recipients out of thousands of entrants.
“We are thrilled by the award,” Elena Casson, Xhale’s director of marketing, wrote in an e-mail. “It’s such an honor to be rated one of the top new technologies by such a well-known publication.”
Developed at UF by Dr. Richard Melker and Dr. Donn Dennis along with a team of Xhale engineers, the HyGreen hand sensors monitor the cleanliness of health care workers’ hands.
After washing their hands, health care workers, who wear small badges, run their hands underneath the sensors. When they have scrubbed their hands thoroughly, the badge will give off a green light that tells the worker that he or she may proceed to work with a patient.
Another monitor is set up near a patient’s bed. When the health care worker approaches, the bedside monitor sends out infrared and acoustic signals to the badges. If the monitor reads clean, it will give off a green light. If health care workers need to go back and wash their hands more thoroughly, the monitor will vibrate.
The HyGreen system will help prevent the transmission of health care-acquired infections, which according to statistics provided by Xhale Innovations Inc., account for the deaths of nearly 270 people in the U.S. daily and about $40 billion in health care costs.
At this time, the system is only at Shands, but the company is taking orders and will be installing in April 2010. The cost will vary depending on the size of the hospital.
Although the company is completely focused on the HyGreen at this point, Casson said that Xhale would like to take their technology into the food service industry.
“Wouldn’t you like to know if your waiter or waitress has washed their hands?” she said.
