scholarly journals Application Notes: APD Handwash Android App – A tool for evaluating the effectiveness of handwashing

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei-Ling Wu ◽  
◽  
Zealyn Shi-Lin Heng ◽  
Samuel Ken-En Gan ◽  
◽  
...  

Handwashing is a basic infection control practice that needs to be performed correctly to be effective. In the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, its correct practice is emphasized by public health institutions. However, turning a practice into a habit requires acceptance for adoption of the twenty-second proper procedure to which difficulty remains. To promote and convince the average user, we developed the “APD Handwash app” as a home-use demonstration/education tool to the pitfalls and need of proper handwashing practices through the detection of assigned clean or dirty areas on the hand in a quantitative manner to provide a gauge to the effectiveness of washing when used before and after washing.

Author(s):  
Tamar Sharon

AbstractThe datafication and digitalization of health and medicine has engendered a proliferation of new collaborations between public health institutions and data corporations like Google, Apple, Microsoft and Amazon. Critical perspectives on these new partnerships tend to frame them as an instance of market transgressions by tech giants into the sphere of health and medicine, in line with a “hostile worlds” doctrine that upholds that the borders between market and non-market spheres should be carefully policed. This article seeks to outline the limitations of this common framing for critically understanding the phenomenon of the Googlization of health. In particular, the mobilization of a diversity of non-market value statements in the justification work carried out by actors involved in the Googlization of health indicates the co-presence of additional worlds or spheres in this context, which are not captured by the market vs. non-market dichotomy. It then advances an alternative framework, based on a multiple-sphere ontology that draws on Boltanski and Thevenot’s orders of worth and Michael Walzer’s theory of justice, which I call a normative pragmatics of justice. This framework addresses both the normative deficit in Boltanski and Thevenot’s work and provides an important emphasis on the empirical workings of justice. Finally, I discuss why this framework is better equipped to identify and to address the many risks raised by the Googlization of health and possibly other dimensions of the digitalization and datafication of society.


PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (6) ◽  
pp. e0251815
Author(s):  
Solomon Shitu ◽  
Getachew Adugna ◽  
Haimanot Abebe

Background Blood/body fluid splash are hazards to health care professionals in their working area. Around twenty bloodborne pathogens are known to be transmitted through these occupational injuries. This problem alters the health status of health care professionals in different ways, including physically, mentally, and psychologically. Even though health professionals especially midwives who are working in delivery rooms are highly affected, little is known about the exposure. So, this study was aimed to assess the prevalence of exposure to blood/body fluid splash and its predictors among midwives working in public health institutions of Addis Ababa city. Methods Institution based cross-sectional study was conducted among 438 study participants in public health institutions in Addis Ababa. Data was collected from March 1–20, 2020 by a self-administered questionnaire. The data were entered into Epi data version 3.1 and then exported to SPSS version 24 for analysis. All variables with P<0.25 in the bivariate analysis were included in a final model and statistical significance was declared at P< 0.05. Results In this study, a total of 424 respondents respond yielding a response rate of 97%. The prevalence of blood and body fluid splashes (BBFs) was 198 (46.7%). Not training on infection prevention, working in two shifts (> 12 hours), not regularly apply universal precautions, job-related stress, an average monthly salary of 5001–8000 were independent predictors of blood and body fluid splashes. Conclusion The study revealed that nearly half of midwives were exposed to BBFS. This highlights the need for key stakeholders such as policymakers and service providers to design appropriate policies to avert this magnitude and making the environment enabling to comply with standard precautions. We recommend that this study may be done by including rural setting institutions and by including other health professionals that are susceptible to BBFS at work. Formal training on infection prevention and safety practice to apply universal precautions will be needed from the concerned bodies to prevent exposures to blood/body fluid splash.


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