Provider Satisfaction With Artificial Intelligence–Based Hand Hygiene Monitoring System During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Study of a Rural Medical Center

Objective

The objectives of this study were to investigate providers’ attitudes toward an artificial intelligence (AI)–based hand hygiene monitoring system and to examine the relationship between provider well-being and satisfaction with the usage of that system.

Methods

A self-administered questionnaire was mailed to 48 health care providers (ie, physicians, registered nurses, and other providers) at a rural medical center in north Texas between September and October 2022. In addition to descriptive statistics, Spearman's correlation test was conducted to discern the relationship between provider satisfaction with the usage of the AI-based hygiene monitoring system and their well-being. A Kendall's tau correlation coefficient test was utilized to assess the correlation between subgroup demographics and survey questions.

Results

With a 75% response rate (n = 36), the providers reported sufficient satisfaction with monitoring system usage and that AI directly affects provider well-being. Providers with more years of experience and younger than 40 years of age reported significantly higher satisfaction with AI technology in general and considered the amount of time that they spent on AI-related tasks as interesting compared with their counterpart providers.

Conclusion

The findings suggest that higher satisfaction with the AI-based hygiene monitoring system was related to greater provider well-being. Providers sought successful implementation of an AI-based tool that met their expectations, but such implementation required marked levels of consolidation to ensure that it fits within the existing workflows and was accepted by users.