New Technology Senses Unwashed Hands

Mark Thorson said:

eMerge, which demonstrated an early prototype for The
Associated Press, said its first clean-hand scanners could
go on sale as early as year's end to restaurants, nursing
homes, hospitals and day-care centers. Using
identification cards, the devices can even record which
employees scrubbed acceptably and which ones still have
dirty hands.

edition.cnn.comcleanhand.teOpen ↗
chnology.ap/index.html

I was expecting an electronic nose -- analagous to random
police checks with finger-sniffing dogs.

Best regards, Bob

On Mon, 12 Apr 2004 14:16:13 GMT, Mark Thorson <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

eMerge, which demonstrated an early prototype for The
Associated Press, said its first clean-hand scanners could
go on sale as early as year's end to restaurants, nursing
homes, hospitals and day-care centers. Using identification
cards, the devices can even record which employees scrubbed
acceptably and which ones still have dirty hands.

edition.cnn.comcleanhand.tecOpen ↗
hnology.ap/index.html

It only detects fecal contamination, which may carry e-coli.
While they're promoting it for use after employees return to
the bathroom (since it really can't detect anything else),
the most serious e-coli is not present in the humans
digestive tract (otherwise we'd already be immune from it).

So while it may detect poo (not pee, nor boogers), and may
keep microscopic particles of poo off your burger, it will
do nothing to prevent disease or other foreign material.

-sw

I can imagine the technology having a beneficial use in
commercial kitchens because it provides an easy way to avoid
a subject that no one wants to talk about.

I am reminded of an incident I read about in The Miami
Herald many years ago. Apparently there had been a minor
outbreak of hepatitis in the local hospitals. The public
health officials zoomed in to discover what the patients had
in common that could lead them to the source of the
outbreak. It turned out that all had eaten at a particular
gourmet store/restaurant. The employees were tested. One
tested positive. He was a low level worker, not a
professional chef. It was probably a part time or summer job
for him. He had no symptoms. He wouldn't have spread the
disease if he'd washed his hands after wiping his ass.

The next time I was in the store, everyone was wearing
hairnets and plastic gloves. The place was exaggeratedly
clean. It went out of business anyway. Nothing could erase
the association in the public's mind.

I'm sure the owner wished he had some way of mentioning the
embarrassing subject. You can put a sign in the employee
washroom reminding people to wash their hands, but some
will ignore it. I suppose you could make little comments
about hand washing when you see someone leaving the men's
room, but that's no way to treat adults. You assume they
know and hope for the best. When I owned a small catering
business, I and the other senior staff exited the bathroom
and then washed our hands in full view of the other
employees at the small hand sink that the department of
health insisted I install for that purpose. That worked.
Since everyone including the dishwashers and delivery
people could see us doing it, they washed their hands in
full view also. I never had to figure out how to remind
people in their native language or ask if they'd done so.
It was just something we all did.

If you installed a fancy hi-tech gadget, you could explain
that it detects if hands are clean enough without going into
detail about what it's detecting exactly. Using it could be
a habit or a game.

--Lia