Office Workers’ Views About the Uses, Concerns, and Acceptance of Hand Hygiene Data Collected From Smart Sanitizers: Exploratory Qualitative Interview Study (Preprint)

Abstract

COVID-19 and the prospect of future pandemics have emphasized the need to reduce disease transmission in workplaces. Despite the well-established link between good hand hygiene (HH) and employee health, HH in nonclinical workplaces has received little attention. Smart sanitizers have been deployed in clinical settings to motivate and enforce HH. This study is part of a large project that explores the potential of smart sanitizers in office settings.

Our previous study found that for office workers to accept the deployment of smart sanitizers, they would need to find the data generated as useful and actionable. The objectives of this study were to identify (1) the potential uses and actions that could be taken from HH data collected by smart sanitizers (2) the concerns of office workers for the identified uses and actions and (3) the circumstances in which office workers accept HH monitoring.

An interview study was conducted with 18 office workers from various professions. Interview questions were developed using a framework from personal informatics. Transcripts were analyzed thematically.

A wide range of uses of smart sanitizer data was identified including managing hygiene resources and workflows, finding operating sanitizers, communicating the (high) standard of organizational hygiene, promoting and enforcing organizational hygiene policies, improving workers’ own hygiene practices, executing more effective interventions, and identifying the causes of outbreaks. However, hygiene is mostly considered as a private matter, and it is also possible that no action would be taken. Office workers were also concerned about bullying, coercion, and use of hygiene data for unintended purposes. They were also worried that the data could be inaccurate or incomplete, leading to misrepresentation of hygiene practices. Office workers suggested that they would be more likely to accept monitoring in situations where hygiene is considered important, when there are clear benefits to data collection, if their privacy is respected, if they have some control over how their data are collected, and if the ways in which the data will be used are clearly communicated.

Smart sanitizers could have a valuable role in improving hygiene practices in offices and reducing disease transmission. Many actionable uses for data collected from smart systems were identified. However, office workers consider HH as a personal matter, and acceptance of smart systems is likely to be dynamic and will depend on the broad situation. Except when there are disease outbreaks, smart systems may need to be restricted to uses that do not require the sharing of personal data. Should organizations wish to implement smart sanitizers in offices, it would be advisable to consult widely with staff and develop systems that are customizable and personalizable.