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Moville man cracks MRSA
11.02.09
New device will monitor
hospital hygiene
by Damian Dowds, Inishowen
Independent
MOVILLE man James Bonner may have found a method to
stop the spread of MRSA and other highly-infectious
and deadly hospital diseases. His company, Itronik
Interconnect in Letterkenny, has developed a tag
that for the first time allows staff hand hygiene to
be monitored. Using radio frequency identification (RFID)
technology called HigenX, hospital staff are issued
with tags that monitor how long they spend in front
of a sink and even how much hand washing gel they
use.
Poor hand hygiene standards are regularly cited as
one of the leading reasons for the spread of MRSA in
hospitals. Patient Focus, an Irish-based patient
advocacy group, states that proper hand washing
would reduce MRSA infection rates by 33%. |
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“We started out
planning to develop a system to monitor hygiene in
bathrooms but quickly discovered there were more
applications,” Bonner, , says. “We’ve been trialing
this tag in hospitals for the past two years, and we
also have ongoing trials in food processing
factories and fast food outlets.”
“Not alone can we monitor hand washing, but with
tags embedded in staff uniforms we can tell how
often they’ve been washed and even the temperature
at which they’ve been washed,” Bonner added. |
Around €3 million has
been invested in developing the device over the past
five years, and the product is now being taken to
market.
Basing a technology company in Letterkenny presented
some problems, but Bonner believes it is perfectly
feasible.
“We have to be realistic and accept that we may not
be able to attract the best technicians in the world
to Donegal, but using telecommunications we can get
over this problem,” said Bonner, who connects
remotely with staff in Austria and England. “With
good Internet access, you can work from anywhere. It
took up almost a year to set up and perfect our
remote working but our project couldn’t have
happened any other way.”
“The infrastructure here may not be perfect, but
it’s workable – if you’re prepared to work with it.”
Itronik currently employs four people and hopes to
increase that to ten as it consolidates its final
assembly and sales functions at its Letterkenny
base. |
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