Patent ID: 8094029

Claim:
A hand hygiene rate calculation and hand hygiene performance feedback system comprising a computer network with application software with an application software administration center operative on the computer network which allows an application software user to direct the application software to interface with and query data or data-bases at sites or locations on the network where raw hygiene data is produced or stored, and with an application software user interface which enables the application software user to enter or choose a desired hand hygiene rate metric from a list of standard metrics, and to also input a hand hygiene rate denominator value such that execution of the application software will cause mathematical operations to be performed upon raw hygiene data from locations queried as selected by the applications software user, and utilizing the hand hygiene rate metric selected by the user and the hand hygiene rate denominator value input by the applications software user, the system will output processed data in the form of hand hygiene performance data or hand hygiene rate data, wherein the application software is configurable via the application software administration center to address, interface with and query data-based raw hygiene data residing anywhere on the computer network that the application software is located, whether the network is a corporate intranet, a private network, or the Internet, and which raw hygiene data contains time stamped hand hygiene event data which includes (i) the number of times and (ii) when a particular soap or sanitizer dispenser or group of particular soap or sanitizer dispensers have been used, and is stored in a publicly available database format, and wherein the application software is configurable to perform mathematical operations on raw hygiene data such that only the raw data required to assess the hand hygiene performance or hand hygiene rate of a group of individuals or team of co-workers or personnel from which the raw data originated is operated upon, the raw data includes time stamped hand hygiene event data which includes (i) the number of times and (ii) when a particular soap or sanitizer dispenser or group of particular soap or sanitizer dispensers have been used, wherein any individual or individual personnel identification information and any other information which links individual or individual personnel identification to the raw hygiene data is necessarily excluded from mathematical operation by the application software.