Science Meets Business: Cooperation with Researchers at Westfälische Hochschule Gelsenkirchen

The beginnings of Hypros (fmr. GWA Hygiene) date back to 2013. At that time, founder Maik Gronau was himself a hospital patient and observed that the disinfection behavior of staff in his patient room varied. This raised the question of whether there were methods for recording hand disinfection. At the time, no solution had prevailed, so the decision was made to develop a hand hygiene monitoring system. This was the birth of NosoEx. However, there had already been previous efforts in this field. In 2009, researchers at Westfälische Hochschule Gelsenkirchen developed a monitoring system for disinfectant dispensers under the name "[IHMoS](https://www.mikroelektronik.w-hs.de/index.php/ihmos)" (Intelligent Hand Hygiene Monitoring System). A patent application was also filed in this context, which was granted as a [patent](https://patents.google.com/patent/WO2011069624A1/de) a few months ago. Looking back, inventor Prof. Dr. Udo Jorczyk reflects: > "We were very early with our technology at the time, perhaps even too early." IHMoS was deployed at institutions including the Charite and the University Hospital Greifswald. Now Jorczyk is looking forward: > "The technology has evolved, and Hypros demonstrates with its current system and planned further developments where the journey can lead. We are therefore delighted to revive the topic and shape it together through a cooperation." CEO Tobias Gebhardt underlines this: "Hygiene is a team sport. The team around Prof. Jorczyk did real pioneering work at the time. But awareness of hand disinfection is now probably significantly higher." A study from Hospital Wuhan ([Li Ran et al. 2020](https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciaa287/5808788)) emphasizes that hand hygiene is the most important preventive measure. This applies especially after contact with Covid-19 patients. > "The daily work of those responsible for hygiene has unfortunately not yet arrived in the digital age. We want to support hospital hygiene with digital assistants. With the team around Prof. Jorczyk, we gain a true technological partner." > > — Tobias Gebhardt, CEO This is a wonderful example of how science and business — in this case, Westfälische Hochschule Gelsenkirchen and the startup Hypros — can go hand in hand. It is expected that further exciting developments will follow.