SwipeSense has joined The Leapfrog Group Partners Advisory Committee, an exclusive group of healthcare leaders who are working to advance patient safety in the United States. Leapfrog, an independent, not-for-profit organization dedicated to improving the quality and safety of American healthcare, established the Partners Advisory Committee in 2009 and depends on input from advisory partners to develop patient safety and quality improvement initiatives.

“SwipeSense is excited and proud to partner with The Leapfrog Group,” said David Romito, Vice President of Sales at SwipeSense. “Together with The Leapfrog Group and our hospital partners, we are dedicated to upholding excellent patient safety standards that help save lives, improve the patient and clinician experience, and create operational efficiencies.”

Dedication to Patient Safety

The Leapfrog Group and SwipeSense are both dedicated to patient safety. Leapfrog, founded in 2000, wants to improve the quality and safety of American healthcare. Its mission is to trigger giant leaps forward in the safety, quality and affordability of health care by using transparency to support informed health care decisions and promote high-value care. 

SwipeSense, a Chicago-based healthcare technology company, was founded in 2011 with the mission to make hospitals safer by empowering them to make data-driven changes that can improve patient safety. The platform’s advanced applications, including Electronic Hand Hygiene Monitoring, Real-Time Asset Tracking, Automated Contact Tracing, and Nursing Insights, are designed to eliminate harm and reduce significant costs to the U.S. healthcare system. 

Both organizations have invested significant time and resources toward helping hospitals decrease healthcare-associated infections (HAIs), which patients contract during hospitalization, along with other medical errors. HAIs remain one of the top five killers in the United States, and tens of thousands of Americans die each year as the result of preventable medical errors, including medication mix-ups and incorrect care. 

To help healthcare consumers choose the safest hospitals – and promote the adoption of policies to improve patient safety – The Leapfrog Group launched Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grades a decade ago. Leapfrog considers hospitals’ performance on more than thirty national performance measures, including hand hygiene, HAI rates, patient falls, surgical errors, and medication administration practices, and issues each hospital a public letter grade to represent patient safety. (As in school, an “A” is a top mark, while a “D” or “F” is less than satisfactory.)

SwipeSense’s technology enables hospitals to measure and improve their performance on many of those same measures. The SwipeSense Electronic Hand Hygiene Monitoring system, for instance, is proven to increase hand hygiene compliance rates and decrease HAI rates. Nursing Insights promotes bedside shift reporting and regular nurse rounding – two practices that have been linked to decreased patient falls and medication errors. 

As a member of the Leapfrog Partner Advisory Committee, SwipeSense will share industry insights, including persistent clinical challenges, in an effort to improve healthcare quality and safety. These frontline insights will help The Leapfrog Group craft effective programs – and policies that reflect and respond to on-the-ground reality. 

Such collaboration is essential to revitalize and sustain patient safety improvement efforts in the post-COVID-19 era. 

Partner Advisory Committee Activities 

The Leapfrog Advisory Partners Committee meets quarterly, and SwipeSense team members will:

• Provide input on Leapfrog’s policy directions
• Provide constructive feedback on Leapfrog programs, including the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Survey and hand hygiene monitoring requirement
• Participate in partner-led initiatives that advance patient safety
• Identify and implement targeted, collaborative projects that increase consumer and health professional engagement in quality improvement initiatives