The lack of handwashing compliance data starves the normal corporate decision-making machinery and perpetuates unnecessary levels of operator risk. Without numbers, handwashing remains one of the few risk factors void of an operationally monitored standard.
Operators know their handwashing is well below what they seek but without the numbers their case for change is chocked.
Foodservice commonly questions the value of electronic handwash monitoring. “So now we have a number. So what?” This question is definitively answered as research directly connects monitoring with higher handwashing frequency and lower illnesses. Healthcare research has provided a clinically proven handwash behavior-changer in data.
Healthcare and Foodservice differ in so many ways. This research, within the ranks of restaurants, risks going unnoticed. But the two do agree that handwashing is primarily about sustainable behavior change and their respective workforces. Both have a great deal of common ground in their shared need for clean hands – ServeReady® and CareReady®.
This simple graph is the result of enormous data collection, only possible in healthcare because they regularly report their illness/infections and a quasi-frequency standard is possible by comparing staff handwashes and patient room entry and exit. That is not possible in foodservice as there are more than one entry point into the kitchen and there is no collective tracking of illness directly caused by the establishment.
Wait and wonder or act and answer Is the question facing foodservice operators. Luckily, kitchen installations of electronically tracked handwashing systems are dramatically less expensive and equally effective compared the those in healthcare. This facilitates trials. Operators are now running tests to demonstrate the power of data within their own culture. Armed with this answer, a final choice of technologies can be made.
COVID-heightened customer demands for illness prevention has opened the door to testing by foodservice leaders and innovators. Data is making their case for investment in customer safety and even Customer Loyalty programs such as witnessed at Crushed Red. [Link http://handwashingforlife.com/blog/mike-mann/handwashing-added-loyalty-program
