Lathem Physician Leadership Award in Hand Hygiene Accepting Nominations for 2012
BIRMINGHAM, Ala., March 22, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Proventix Systems, Inc. of Birmingham, AL today announced the call for nominations for the annual Lathem Physician Leadership Award in Hand Hygiene. Proventix Systems created the Lathem Award to recognize physicians worldwide who demonstrate excellence and leadership in hand hygiene.
Named in honor of Dr. Mickey Lathem, the award recognizes physician leadership that provides high-quality, compassionate care to patients via exemplary hand hygiene practices. He or she demonstrates quality through personal compliance and vocal, active leadership. As a physician and parent of a child who contracted a healthcare associated infection (HAI), Dr. Lathem began advocating hand hygiene and promoting a heightened awareness among all health care providers.
"I'm thrilled and honored to be the namesake for this initiative," says Dr. Lathem. "Research supports the understanding that physician-led quality improvement efforts significantly reduce adverse outcomes and help sustain compliance among caregivers. Hand hygiene is such a simple thing; we can and should do better."
Harvey Nix, CEO and founder of Proventix, created the award to recognize physicians who act as change agents in their facilities and encourage hand washing, whether through the promotion of hand hygiene improvement initiatives, verbal reinforcement, or by example. "The Lathem Physician Leadership Award in Hand Hygiene was created to honor those physicians who recognize the importance of hand hygiene and do their part to prevent infections."
Clinical quality leaders Drs. Atul Guwande and Peter Pronovost have demonstrated that it is possible to improve outcomes through standardized processes and the collaborative efforts of healthcare workers. "Dr. Guwande suggests the most difficult thing to get clinicians to do is wash their hands," says Lathem. "But physicians have a greater responsibility to set the example and encourage others to improve the quality of care delivered to patients. Hand washing improves quality and enables healthcare workers to deliver safer care, leading to better patient outcomes."
2011 Winners: Dr. Edmund Wroblewski, Chief Medical Officer, Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital; Dr. Robert Libke, MD, Specialist: Infectious Disease & Epidemiology, Saint Agnes Medical Center; Dr. Michael Mohr, Physician, Apex Family Medicine.
Christi Paradise, Infection Control Coordinator at Saint Agnes Medical Center, said of her nominee: "Dr. Libke has been instrumental in developing and supporting a hospital-wide accountability program for hand hygiene which includes all staff and physicians. Dr. Libke has been very supportive of our implementation of the electronic hand hygiene monitoring system as an adjunct to our current hand hygiene surveillance. This has enabled us to apply a more objective monitor than we have experienced with the direct observer based hand hygiene surveillance. His support has allowed us to be the first hospital in the state of California with an electronic-based hand hygiene observation system." This type of leadership typifies a Lathem winner and is the vision of the type of leader we want to nationally recognize.
The award nomination form is available at http://proventix.com/the-lathem-physician-leadership-award until May 18th, 2012. Lathem Award winners will be announced in conjunction with the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) annual conference in San Antonio, TX in June.
About Proventix Systems, Inc.: Proventix is dedicated to delivering outcomes-driven technology solutions to help healthcare providers deliver the highest quality of care. Proventix's lead product, nGage™, is a point-of-care compliance monitoring system that successfully motivates healthcare workers to follow hand hygiene standards, engaging healthcare workers personally and professionally with active messaging. Proventix provides tools and services for quality compliance monitoring, active point of care communication, and successful behavior modification. Visit: www.proventix.com
For more information, contact: Sean Doyle, 205-383-1156, mediarelations@proventix.com
SOURCE Proventix Systems, Inc.
