Hygiea

Smart hand hygiene. Safer tomorrow.

ML and camera monitoring for hospital hand hygiene — especially newborn units — so IPC teams catch missed moments before they become hospital-acquired infections.

How it works Request a pilot

Why it matters

Hand hygiene is the simplest defence — and still the hardest to sustain.

Kenyan newborn-unit studies show how far compliance can fall when teams rely on observation alone. Hygiea turns those missed moments into continuous, objective signal.

15% Overall hand-hygiene compliance observed in a tertiary newborn unit study in Kenya. Ngugi et al., Journal of Infection Prevention, 2019
42% Hand-hygiene compliance scored at Moi Teaching & Referral Hospital newborn unit — rated poor vs a <75% standard. MTRH newborn-unit evaluation study
WHO 5 Moments for Hand Hygiene — the clinical standard Hygiea maps monitoring and coaching against. World Health Organization

Product

Camera + IoT + machine learning at the point of care.

Born from preventable losses to hospital-acquired infection, Hygiea combines edge cameras, smart sink workflows, and ML to verify hygiene before staff enter critical areas such as ICUs and newborn units.

  1. 01

    Sense the moment

    Edge cameras and IoT at sinks and ward entry points observe hygiene opportunities without adding clipboard audits.

  2. 02

    Score compliance with ML

    Models learn proper wash / rub behaviour and flag missed or incomplete protocols in near real time.

  3. 03

    Coach with clear data

    IPC teams get unit-level trends, shift patterns, and actionable gaps — so training lands where risk is highest.

Built for

Newborn units first. Safer wards next.

Hospital IPC & nursing leads

Replace sparse spot-checks with continuous visibility across high-risk procedures and night shifts.

Neonatal & critical care

Protect small and sick newborns where bloodstream infections move fast and compliance is hardest to sustain.

Journey

From student lab to hospital-ready monitoring.

Selected for Co-Creation Hub’s Uni:nnovators Startups-in-Residence programme as a Kenya student-led team using ML and camera monitoring for healthcare-worker hand hygiene. Public launch on LinkedIn as Hygiea IPC with a mission to raise compliance and cut preventable HAIs.

Pilot Hygiea on your ward.

Infection prevention teams, hospital innovation offices, and partners — let’s keep the next newborn safer.

team@hygiea.africa