Privately held BioVigil LLC opens up to new investors to fund growth
SANTA ROSA, Calif., Jan. 12, 2011 — BioVigil LLC today announced that its founder, Dr. Steven F. Bolling, is scheduled to present a company overview at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco. The BioVigil presentation will take place on January 13, 2011 at 9:15am, at the OneMedPlace Forum, Sir Francis Drake Hotel. In particular, Dr. Bolling will present the results from BioVigil's IRB-approved clinical trial and the latest design of the BioVigil Hand Hygiene compliance system.
BioVigil LLC has developed a proprietary system to increase the compliance rates per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines for hand hygiene. The BioVigil system monitors the precise location of healthcare workers and tests their hand-washing compliance upon entry and exit of every patient room. The data is collected in a WEB-based central database for hospital administrators to track the improvement in hand-washing compliance.
The market is driven by the clear correlation of hand hygiene and infection rates in hospital patients.
- The U.S. CDC and the WHO require hospitals to conduct hygiene improvement programs. Despite this requirement, most hospitals have no established method to verify compliance.
- Roughly two million patients pick up secondary infections in US hospitals each year.(1)
- In October 2008, the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) established a new policy in which hospital costs related to hospital-acquired infections (nosocomial infections) are no longer reimbursed.
- A hospital-acquired infection costs $52,000 on average.(2)
BioVigil's development efforts resulted in proof of feasibility and key patent filings in 2006-2010. Prototype systems were developed for clinical trials during summer 2009. An initial trial has been completed in partnership with the Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center (VCU). Findings so far include:
- The BioVigil system improved VCU's handwashing compliance from 65% to 93%.
- Competing systems do not have the capability to detect when a healthcare worker has entered a specific patient's room. Instead, competing prototype systems either use imprecise RFID location techniques, or rely on the healthcare worker to activate the system upon entering a room.
- Only the BioVigil system can record every healthcare worker's entry into a patient's room and monitor the actual compliance with CDC guidelines for hand hygiene.
Based on the results of the VCU clinical trial and recent peer review publication, Brian Sheahan, BioVigil's CEO and President, said there is extremely strong interest in BioVigil's monitoring system from all types of institutions, such as hospitals, long-term healthcare, food products manufacturing and direct sales. This interest is driving the need to seek additional capital for the continued growth and product commercialization.
Mr. Sheahan also noted:
- There are no regulatory hurdles for this technology.
- Scale-up to manufacturing is in place.
- Market penetration for hygiene compliance systems is expected to reach 75% in the healthcare segment, and 50% in the food service segment by 2015 due to pressure from government entities and rising unreimbursed costs related to infections.
- Global sales of the BioVigil system are anticipated to rise to $100 to 300 million in 2013.
BioVigil LLC (http://www.biovigilsystems.com), based in Santa Rosa, California, has developed a monitoring system which is proven to increase hand hygiene compliance in a hospital setting. The company holds a number of patents which protect its proprietary approach to hand hygiene detection and reporting.
(1) Source: Weinstein RA. Nosocomial Infection Update. Emerg Infect Dis 1998; 4: 416-20
(2) Source: Pennsylvania Healthcare Cost Containment Council. Reducing Hospital-acquired Infections: The Business Case. 2005; 1-4
Contact:
Brian Sheahan, CEO and President
(707) 483-8184
Email
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