Hand hygiene – the one KPI that everyone looks at first.
The Hardest Metric.
The Smartest Proof.
Semmel makes it the one you never have to defend.
The Hand Hygiene Realities IPC Leaders Know
Rates swings
Rates swing by ward/shift/clinicians and leadership questions the data.
Observation Bias
Observation is biased & resource-heavy; “Hawthorne spikes” fade quickly.
Frontline Fatigue
Frontline fatigue when audits feel a game of hide and seek, not helpful.
No Change
Reports don’t change behavior; inspection time derails clinical time.
Meet Semmel Hand Hygiene
Own Your Numbers
For IPC leaders, nothing undermines credibility faster than unreliable data. With Semmel Hand Hygiene, every observation is logged with time, place, staff role, and unit — creating a defensible record of compliance. You no longer debate “whose numbers are right.” You can finally stand before your board or inspectors with confidence that your rates are accurate and trusted.
Set it up your way.
Every hospital has its own way of running hand hygiene. Some follow WHO 5 Moments strictly; others adapt policies to local practice. Semmel lets you configure templates, sample sizes, and profession targets to fit your hospital’s standards. Audits match your workflow not the other way around so adoption is smooth, not disruptive. Everything feels designed for the way you actually work.
Turn audits into action.
Audits should drive change, not sit in binders. With Semmel, auditors provide instant feedback to unit heads, flag recurring offenders, and capture reasons for non-compliance. Trends by unit, profession, or staff member become clear, helping leaders intervene constructively. Built-in reminders and balanced sampling ensure coverage is fair and consistent turning audits from a punitive exercise into a culture-building tool.
Proof at a Glance.
Surveyors arrive. Leadership asks for the latest compliance trends. Instead of scrambling, you click. Semmel compiles time-stamped observations, auditor names, and dispersal coverage into inspection-ready reports. Dashboards give executives a clear, honest view of compliance across wards. Your program becomes not just defensible, but respected.
Semmel tops the score in UK’s Journal of Hospital Infection research.
Customer Stories
SingHealth Cross Institution Audit
How do you standardise infection control across 11 hospitals and institutions with 28,000 staff?
This case study shows how SingHealth built a cross-institution audit capability for hand hygiene and environmental hygiene transforming fragmented local audits into a coordinated, high-impact programme that drove consistency and data-driven improvement across the cluster.
Collaborative Audit Model in SingHealth (JPSHQ Journal, 2022)
When a hepatitis C outbreak exposed gaps, Singapore’s largest healthcare cluster responded with a bold new model.
The Collaborative Audit Model unified hand hygiene and environment hygiene audits across 11 institutions, creating a sustainable, multidisciplinary framework. Over six years, compliance improved steadily, and the model expanded.
Digitising Hand Hygiene Audits at ADMC (QIP Project)
42 hours of manual work each month to real-time insights in minutes.
Ara Damansara’s infection control team replaced pen-and-paper hand hygiene audits with a digital platform. The result: zero paper waste, faster turnaround, reduced Hawthorne effect, and reliable compliance data to drive corrective action.
What Makes Semmel Different
Measurement Integrity
Compliance your board can trust.
Hand hygiene data is only as credible as the way it’s captured. Semmel builds integrity into every step, so your board and inspectors see numbers they can believe.
- WHO 5 Moments templates with optional local policy variants (gloves, isolation, bare-below-elbows, ABHR availability).
- Smart Sampling Engine that distributes observations to balance coverage by unit, shift, and profession; avoids “easy audits” bias.
- Bias controls including observer rotation, cross department audits and validation audits..
- Geo-fencing safeguards: GPS-based geo-fencing prevents Auditors from logging observations offsite or retroactive data entry, ensuring every audit is authentic and credible.
- Coverage goals & gaps: live meters show whether this week’s sample is statistically valid.
Key Differentiator: You don’t just get numbers — you get defensible compliance rates that withstand boardroom scrutiny and surveyor inspection.
Behavior Change Engine
From Audit to Improvement
Most digital tools just record observations data. Semmel is designed to shift behaviour, not just data collection.
- Immediate unit-level feedback after audits, so managers can act while issues are fresh.
- Recurring offender flags make patterns visible, not hidden in averages.
- Reasons for non-compliance are captured at the point of audit, so IPC teams address root causes, not just symptoms.
- Reminders & gamification encourage observers to spread audits fairly, consistently hitting sample size targets across units and professions.
- Huddle Toolkit: weekly unit snapshots, top misses by moment, suggested actions in 10 minutes or less.
Key Differentiator: Audits stop being punitive box-ticking and become drivers of coaching, accountability, and cultural change.
Hospital wards are unpredictable. Audits must work seamlessly in the background.
Operational Fit
Built for busy hospitals
- Mobile-first, offline-ready tools so audits continue even in connectivity dead zones.
- Fast, tap-based data entry designed for real-world ward conditions.
- Flexible policy setup: configure by unit, profession, or hospital-wide standards without IT involvement.
- Role-based views (IPC, nurse managers, unit leads, execs) with exactly the signal each role needs..
- Multilingual UI & large-tap controls.
- Policy change: auto push updates to observers with one click.
- Easy-to-use: Learn the app in 2 minutes
Key Differentiator: A system designed in the wards, not in the boardroom — practical for nurses, reliable for IPC leaders.
Analytics that drive action
Not Vanity Dashboards
Hospital leaders don’t need pretty charts; they need answers to tough questions.
- Unit-level dashboards show where compliance is improving or slipping.
- Heatmaps by time & location to spot patterns (e.g., nights, ED triage).
- Profession-level insights highlight role-specific gaps (nursing, medical, allied health).
- Staff-level granularity enables managers to coach and support individuals.
- Audit quality metrics (coverage, dispersal, denominators) show whether compliance data is robust enough for decision-making.
- Automated Custom Reporting: Configure once, run forever. Each month, the system auto-generates and emails tailored reports to unit heads. Totally free up IPC admins’ time while giving every unit timely, relevant compliance insights.
Key Differentiator: Analytics that guide action, resource allocation, and inspection defense — not just decorate PowerPoints.
Governance, Proof & Compliance
Hand hygiene programs live or die on governance. Semmel gives you the controls and evidence trail to defend your program with confidence.
- Role-based control (IPC lead, unit head, auditor) to protect data integrity and ensure the right people access.
- Immmutable audit trails capturing who observed, edited, reviewed, and when, down to timestamp and location.
- Survey-ready reports mapped to WHO/CDC/Accreditation domains.
- Privacy guardrails configurable: geofencing; full audit logging.
- Evidence packs on demand: time-stamped observations, auditor identities, coverage/dispersal, and compliance trendlines — aligned to WHO/JCI chapters for survey readiness.
- Encryption in transit and at rest
Key Differentiator: Governance isn’t an afterthought — you get a defensible record that satisfies executives, withstands inspectors, and protects data integrity end-to-end.
Integration-Ready & Future-Proof
Your program will evolve; your data should come with you. Semmel is designed for portability, compatibility, and scale.
- Data portability by default: one-click Excel and PPT exports and scheduled reports for enterprise analytics/warehousing.
- Optional e-monitoring ingest to unify direct observation with third-party sensor data in one compliance view.
- SafetyOS-native connectivity so hand hygiene insights can be correlated with IPC+ surveillance and wider safety programs when needed.
- Scales from single wards to multi-hospital groups with consistent configuration and governance.
Key Differentiator: You keep control — your data, your policies, your pace — while staying ready to connect with the rest of SafetyOS and whatever comes next.
What You Can Achieve with Semmel Hand Hygiene
Raise Compliance, Lower Risk
Even a modest lift in compliance translates directly into fewer infections. With reliable, defensible data, hospitals can measure progress with confidence and prove impact to leadership and regulators
Earn Boardroom Trust
Instead of anecdotal defenses, IPC leaders can present inspection-ready numbers, traceable to auditors, units, and shifts. Compliance rates stop being a contested statistic and become a board-trusted measure of safety.
Run a Programme That Inspires
Audits are no longer punitive. With instant feedback loops, coverage reminders, and clear reasons for non-compliance, units own their numbers and see hand hygiene as a shared responsibility rather than a burden.
Be Always Survey-Ready
Every audit is time-stamped, signed, and traceable. Reports aligned to WHO and JCI standards are generated instantly. Accreditation prep shifts from panic to routine.
Build a Culture of Reliability
When staff see that compliance is measured fairly, issues flagged consistently, and recognition is data-driven, reliability becomes part of daily practice, not a one-time campaign.
Product Capabilities
- WHO 5 Moments with Local Variants
Pre-configured templates with options for gloves, isolation, bare-below-elbows, and ABHR availability. - Smart Sampling Engine
Automatically balances observations across units, shifts, and professions to ensure valid, representative data. - Observer calibration & reliability checks
- Bias Controls
Blinded mode, observer rotation, inter-rater calibration, and denominator rules reduce sampling bias and strengthen data credibility. - Unit & Profession-Level Dashboards
Drill down from hospital-wide compliance to profession, unit, and staff-level insights. - Recurring Offender Tracking
Flags staff and units with repeated non-compliance, making accountability clear and actionable. - Non-Compliance Reason Capture
Auditors record why a moment was missed (e.g., patient in isolation, ABHR unavailable) so interventions target root causes.
- Reminders & Gamification
Built-in nudges to spread audits evenly, hit sample size targets, and avoid over-auditing “easy” units. - WHO 5 Moments with Local Variants
Pre-configured templates with options for gloves, isolation, bare-below-elbows, and ABHR availability. - Multi-Modal Capture
Direct mobile observation, optional integration with e-monitoring vendors, and event-triggered micro-checks for hard-to-observe moments. - Audit-to-Action Workflow
Immediate unit-head feedback, automated escalation for overdue issues, and verified closure with digital sign-off. - Inspection-Ready Reports
Time-stamped, auditor-tagged reports aligned with WHO/CDC/JCI frameworks, exportable in a click. - Cloud & Role-Based Access
Centralised, secure storage with unlimited user accounts and role-based permissions.
FAQs
Q: Will this actually reduce infections, or just give me prettier reports?
A: Hand hygiene is the single most proven intervention to cut HAIs — but only if compliance data is reliable. Semmel strengthens the integrity of audits (sampling, bias controls, denominators), so compliance rates are credible. That means when compliance improves, you can confidently link it to real infection reduction.
Q: How does this help my board meetings and surveys?
A: Every audit is time-stamped, tagged to auditor, staff role, and unit, with coverage meters to prove validity. Reports align with WHO/CDC/JCI standards. Instead of scrambling for inspection, you walk in with evidence ready.
Q: What makes Semmel different from any digital audit app?
A: Generic apps just collect observations. Semmel adds bias controls (observer rotation, denominator rules, blinded mode), smart sampling to avoid skew, integration with e-monitoring vendors, and governance features like role-based access and policy versioning. This makes data defensible, not just convenient.
Q: Can we get our data out if we need to?
A: Yes. Data portability is built-in — export in CSV, Excel, or PDF anytime. It’s your data, not locked into our platform.
Q: How does this integrate with the rest of our systems?
A: Hand hygiene data lives natively inside SafetyOS, where it can be correlated with IPC+ surveillance or included in Pointer audits. It can also import from e-monitoring vendors, ensuring your HH data is unified, not siloed.
Q: How do I avoid over-auditing the same “easy” units?
A: The Smart Sampling Engine schedules observations to balance coverage by unit, shift, and profession. Reminders and gamification nudge observers to spread audits fairly — so your sample is valid and respected.
Q: What if staff push back and say the numbers are unfair?
A: Observations are transparent: staff role, time, and context are logged. You can also record reasons for non-compliance (e.g., ABHR unavailable, patient in isolation) to provide context. This shifts the conversation from “who’s right” to “what needs fixing.”
Q: Will this add more workload to my team?
A: No. The mobile app is offline-ready and designed for fast, tap-based entry. Audits are quicker than paper, and reminders help you stay on track without chasing spreadsheets.