Patent ID: 8482406

Claim:
A sanitization compliance monitoring system for a health care environment having patient beds, comprising: badges wearable by persons, said badges having indicia representing a first-state indicating a sanitary compliant condition of the person, a second-state representing a cautionary state indicating the person's contact with a first patient, and a third-state representing an unsanitary state indicating the person's contact with a second patient after contact with, and different from, a first patient, said badges also having a wireless transmitter/receiver for communicating an identification signal unique to a single badge, and the current state of the badge; patient bed beacons, each associated with a different respective patient bed, each bed beacon having a transmitter/receiver capable of wirelessly communicating with said badges; dispenser beacons, each associated with a sanitization dispenser, and having a transmitter/receiver capable of wirelessly communicating with said badges; and wherein a badge in said first-state changes to said second-state when located in a certain proximity to a patient bed beacon, and transmits a status change signal indicating such first-to-second-state change to the patient bed beacon with the badge identification signal; wherein a badge in said second-state changes to said third-state when located in a certain proximity to a patient bed beacon different from the patient bed beacon which caused the badge to change from the first-state to the second-state, and transmits a status signal indicating such second-to-third-state change to the patient bed beacon with the badge identification signal, and wherein a dispenser beacon causes a badge to change from the second-state or third-state to the first-state when the person has performed a sanitization procedure at a sanitization dispenser beacon.