  Hand hygiene has long been promoted as the most effective way to prevent the
transmission of infection. However, due to the low compliance and quality of
hand hygiene reported in previous studies, constant monitoring of healthcare
workers' hand hygiene compliance and quality is crucial. In this study, we
investigate the feasibility of using a thermal camera together with an RGB
camera to detect hand coverage of alcohol-based formulation, thereby monitoring
handrub quality. The system yields promising results in terms of accuracy
(93.5%) and Dice coefficient (87.1%) when observations take place 10 seconds
after performing handrub. In addition, we also examine the system performance
change over a 60-second observation period, and the accuracy and Dice
coefficient still remain at about 92.4% and 85.7% when observation happens at
the 60-second time point. Given these encouraging results, thermal imaging
shows its potential feasibility in providing accurate, constant, and systematic
hand hygiene quality monitoring.
