We go to hospitals expecting to get better. But in many cases, they only make you sicker. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, over 2 million Americans contract Hospital Acquired Infections (HAI), resulting in 100,000 deaths and over $30 billion in costs to the health care system per year. Experts agree: simply improving staff hand-washing habits could prevent these needless infections.Enter SwipeSense, Inc., the healthcare startup founded in 2012 by Mert Iseri and Yuri Malina, two Northwestern University graduates. SwipeSense aims to incentivize good hand-hygiene via smart, wearable, alcohol-based gel dispensers and a web-based monitoring platform. Resembling an Apple computer mouse, the SwipeSense device clips easily onto hospital scrubs, recording every time users disinfect their hands. Together with wall-mounted proximity sensors, the system wirelessly tracks hand-washing practices, allowing doctors and nurses to see and download daily, weekly, or monthly reports, much like a FitBit, Nike Fuel Band, or other popular Quantified Self products.Early results are encouraging: a 12-week trial at Northwestern Memorial Hospital showed a 64% increase in hand-sanitizer use. SwipeSense systems are currently undergoing trials in 10 U.S. hospitals and the startup has received numerous accolades, including being chosen as one of three finalists for 2013 Wall Street Journal Startup of the Year. Coming Clean About Bad Hand-Washing Habits
A recent New York Times article reported hospital personnel wash their hands only about 30 percent of the time they’re supposed to. Hospitals already have plenty of communal sinks and hand-sanitizing dispensers, but time-strapped care givers simply don’t use them and monitoring is still done manually with pen and paper. To figure out why compliance is so low, Iseri and Malina spent weeks observing staff at North Shore University Health System. They noticed a natural, prevalent behavior: medical staff wiped their hands on their scrubs. This insight lead to a personal, nonintrusive, and convenient hand-sanitizing solution that doesn’t interrupt the flow of care.IDEO encouraged us to incorporate the user’s perspective into every decision we make as a company, and every product we ship as engineers. This philosophy has lead us to delighted customers, a more effective technology, and most importantly, a stronger business.—Yuri MalinaA Hands-On Design Collaboration 
IDEO met SwipeSense at Healthbox, a Chicago digital-health accelerator program where the startup was in residence. Iseri and Malina had developed a working prototype of the hand-sanitizing device and needed help pushing it to the next level. For several months, IDEO designers held brainstorms with the two on alternative product architectures and manufacturing approaches, held hands-on prototyping charrettes, and helped them evolve and refine the final physical and digital experience of their product in CAD. The IDEO team also examined how an expanded data offering could provide added value to their business and the healthcare system at large. 
Working with IDEO was like having a cheat code in a video game. It rapidly accelerated our progress in terms of product development, bringing us much closer to a device and a web app that healthcare workers love.—Mert IseriA Simple, Life-Saving Solution
After more than 70 design iterations, SwipeSense landed on the current sleek, modern, user-friendly design. The eventual goal: make the patent-pending system ubiquitous in America’s 5,700 hospitals, much like wall-mounted hand-sanitizing devices are today—and save 100,000 lives lost each year.Let’s put our hands together for smarter, healthier hand washing.