Healthcare Associated Infections (HAI) also known as nosocomial infections, is an infection contracted by a patient during the process of care in the hospital or other health care facilities. Every year in the United States, 2 million people contract health care associated infections and over 100,000 people die from these infections; more than car accidents, breast cancer and AIDS all put together. Poor Hand Hygiene is responsible for 40 percent of infections transmitted in hospitals.
The use of alcohol gels and accessibility of hand wash stations will improve compliance with hand washing. Several studies show that doctors wash their hands less frequently than nurses. Finger tips, back of hands ,thumbs and web spaces are neglected while performing a hand wash.In order to enforce guidelines for hand washing , WHO has developed five moments for Hand Hygiene in Health Care. The need of the hour is is to bring about a behaviourial change in hospitals by the intervention of technology.To address the above challenge, gesture recognition algorithms are designed, using mathematical tools such as Hiddemn Markov Models and Neural Networks, to recognise hand wash.
