Ann Arbor health tech company marks 1 billion hand sanitization alerts in hospitals

BioVigil, an Ann Arbor-based health care technology company, recently reached a significant milestone of alerting partner hospital staff to one billion opportunities to perform hand hygiene.

“Hand hygiene is the number one thing that you do [as a health care worker],” says Erik Axter, CEO of BioVigil. “If you do it right, it’s the strongest corollary to creating a good infection control standard.”

The World Health Organization defines a hand hygiene opportunity as any moment during health-care activities when hand hygiene is necessary to interrupt germ transmission by hands. This includes moments before and after touching a patient and their surroundings, as well as changing patient dressings, handling tubing, body fluids, and more. 

Improper hand hygiene is a pressing issue in American health care. A 2024 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that one in every 38 admitted hospital patients contracts an infection unrelated to their original issue during their stay. BioVigil is working to dramatically change that.

Founded in 2012 by Dr. Steven F. Bolling, a cardiothoracic surgeon at the University of Michigan for decades, BioVigil uses infrared technology and wearable badges to detect when a health care provider enters and exits a patient’s room. Upon entry, the badge prompts the provider to sanitize their hands by beeping, vibrating, and turning its light-up green hand symbol yellow. 

Once hand sanitizer is applied, the worker simply cups their hand over the badge, where alcohol vapors from the sanitizer are detected by a breathalyzer, and it turns green again. If hands are not washed in the proper time frame, the light-up hand will turn red, alerting patients and fellow workers that action needs to be taken. 

BioVigil’s goal is to make proper hand hygiene a subconscious part of every health care worker’s daily routine, preventing longer hospital stays, higher treatment costs, and even deaths.

“I’ve talked to a lot of doctors and a lot of nurses, and they know the power of hand hygiene and they know that it’s something that’s important to everybody. They all get trained on this,” Axter says. “They’re very clear about why they need to do it and how they need to do it, but it can be easily missed in the moment of care.”

Hand hygiene is becoming significantly more consistent under BioVigil’s technology. The company’s website reports an over 97% compliance rate in its partner hospitals, and a recent study of 25 of BioVigil’s partner hospitals showed a sustained 46% reduction in health care-associated infections since incorporating the technology.

BioVigil is currently deployed in roughly 100 hospitals across the United States, ranging from rural community hospitals to large multi-state health systems.

Axter says the Ann Arbor community has been an exceptional asset to growing BioVigil’s brand. He says the company is grateful for the “access to talent and well-educated individuals” the city has to offer, including students and faculty at the University of Michigan partnering with BioVigil to conduct research and collect data on infection control.

“It’s a great talent base, not to mention the art festivals and farmers markets and a great downtown experience,” Axter says. “It’s a destination for a lot of folks, so we feel privileged to be here.”