Identification of Unique Features and Exploration of Leap Motion Controller for Detecting Hand Hygiene Stages

Hospital acquired infections (HAIs) are contracted by the patients during the hospital stay. Antibiotic resistant microbes are the major cause and spread due to the contaminated medical equipment, crowded hospitals, frequent transfer of patients from one unit to another and poor hand hygiene. [1] In high income countries, approximately 30% of patients in intensive care units are affected by at least one HAI. [2] Hand hygiene is identified as a measure to prevent cross-transmission and to reduce the rate of HAI. [3] Technology is now used as a means of assessing hand hygiene compliance. Current approaches involve the use of electronic counters for measuring the number of hand washing events and product usage but the quality of hand wash is not taken into consideration. There are guidelines that demonstrate how to wash hands properly as per World Health Organisation (WHO). It is proposed that image and gesture based tracking devices may be suitable in assessing the quality of hand hygiene and adherence to accepted guidelines. In advance of implementing these approaches, this paper identifies and classifies the unique features (hand orientation and movement) for each stage of WHO guidelines. A 3D gesture tracking device (Leap Motion Controller) is then used to identify the stages based on this classification system.