Xhale Innovation’s HyGreen Hand Hygiene System Wins 2010 Medical Design Excellence Award

HyGreen™, developed by Xhale Innovations, Inc., has been selected as a winner in the 2010 Medical Design Excellence Awards competition, one of the most prestigious awards in the medical device industry. The announcement comes on the heels of winning the 2009 Popular Science Best of What’s New Award, and is the latest success for this market-defining product.

HyGreen™ won the award for its breakthrough design of a hand hygiene system that will help hospitals to decrease the nearly two million healthcare associated infections that occur each year. The system is wireless and doesn’t impede the workflow of the busy healthcare worker. After cleaning their hands with alcohol-based sanitizers (soap or gel), healthcare workers place them under the HyGreen sensor that sniffs for alcohol and sends a wireless “all clean” message to a badge worn by the healthcare worker. A wireless monitor mounted above the patient bed searches for the message—if it’s absent, the badge vibrates, reminding the healthcare worker to wash. All interactions are recorded in real-time, showing who is washing and who is not.

HyGreen™ was designed to follow the recommended hand hygiene guidelines from leading industry experts, including the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC), the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Joint Commission.

ROBRADY design, a product development partner for the system, nominated HyGreen for the award. This award competition is organized and presented by Canon Communications LLC and is the only awards program that exclusively recognizes contributions and advances in the design of medical products. Entries are evaluated on the basis of their design and engineering features, including innovative use of materials, user-related functions that improve health care delivery and change traditional medical attitudes or practices, features that provide enhanced benefits to the patient and the ability of the product development team to overcome design and engineering challenges so the product meets its clinical objectives.

A comprehensive review of the entries was performed by a multidisciplinary panel of third-party jurors with expertise in biomedical engineering, human factors, industrial design, medicine and diagnostics.

“We are honored and delighted to be recognized by the MDEA judges for HyGreen,” said Xhale Innovations CEO, Richard Allen. “This award recognizes the important work that medical device companies are doing to advance the design and functionality of products that contribute to improved patient outcomes and aid medical professionals on the front lines of delivering care.”

The 2010 Medical Design Excellence Award winners will be honored at a ceremony during the Medical Design & Manufacturing (MD&M) East Conference and Exposition, June 9, 2010, at New York City’s Jacob K. Javits Convention Center.

For more information on Xhale Innovations and the HyGreen Hand Hygiene System, please contact Director of Marketing, Elena Casson at info@gohygreen.com.