Health Care/Medical

Meritech believes that good hand hygiene starts with good skin health. Contact irritant dermatitis is the top concern for health care workers in hospitals today, and the condition is one of the factors contributing to poor hand hygiene practice because damaged hands discourage hand hygiene events (because it hurts!). Contact dermatitis is caused by frequent handwashing with damaging, harsh soaps or, worse, by the overuse of alcohol gel sanitizers that remove all the oil from the skin and actually create lesions on the hands. This painful condition causes a decrease in hygiene events and potentially an increase in HAI’s and Meritech can help with its patented, technology-based systems that use a gentle, non-irritating soap with no alcohol, dyes or fragrances and added skin conditioners.

Alcohol-based hand sanitizers, though a necessary part of the infection prevention process, are known to have irritating effects on the skin. Overuse will inevitably cause dry and abraded hands and effects skin health. Automating the hand hygiene process with CleanTech handwashing stations and solutions eases the negative effects of excessive manual scrubbing and overuse of alcohol agents. Many hospitals encourage the use of a Meritech’s system for every 5 hand hygiene events in order to ensure that a gentle skin conditioning event occurs frequently to offset the damaging effect of alcohol gel.