A leading cause of mortality of hospitalized patients are hospital acquired infections (HAI). Unclean hands of healthcare personnel (HCP) are the most common factor contributing to HAI, but their strict compliance to hand hygiene protocols is difficult to supervise. In this work, we propose CleanHands: a simple, low-cost and scalable monitoring and alerting system to ensure adequate thoroughness of disinfection. CleanHands uses a combination of low-cost Bluetooth low energy (BLE) beacon tags and mobile phones for HCP tracking. It integrates infection control models and state-following algorithms for alarming in the event of noncompliance to hand hygiene. Our preliminary experiments in a mockup, small scale intensive care unit (ICU) facility shows promising results with less than 5% false positives.

The primal problem with the Internet of Things is the lack of interoperability at various levels, and more predominately at the device level. While there exists multitude of platforms from multiple manufacturers, the existing ecosystem still remains highly closed. In this work, we propose SNaaS or Sensor/Network as a Service: a service layer that enables the creation of the plug-n-play infrastructure, across platforms from multiple vendors, necessary for interoperability and successful deployment of large-scale systems. We present the design and implementation of SNaaS, along with preliminary microbenchmarks.