APPARATUS FOR ASSESSING HAND DISINFECTION QUALITY

The invention relates to an apparatus (10) for hand disinfection quality control, the apparatus comprising a house (12); a hand inspection cavity (80) formed on a front face of the house and adapted for receiving a hand of a user; a plurality of light sources arranged to direct ultraviolet, UV, or visible light or infrared, IR, radiation to an internal space of said hand inspection cavity; at least one digital camera arranged in the hand inspection cavity and configured to capture images in the UV, visible or IR spectrum; a hand proximity sensor configured to detect presence of a hand of a user within said hand inspection cavity; a container for storing a disinfectant medium; a dispenser for a metered dosage of the disinfectant medium; input means (40) for locally controlling the operation of the apparatus; display means (50); a processor unit; and an internal data storage unit. The disinfectant medium contains an UV or IR absorbing material, or a phosphorescent material or a chemiluminescent material. The processor unit is configured to generate intensity information for the hand from the images recorded by the at least one camera, said intensity providing information on the extent of the hand surface area covered by the disinfectant medium, to process said intensity information using a predetermined or user-specific evaluation algorithm for determining the acceptable level of hand sanitation, and based on said intensity information processing, to determine whether or not the quality of disinfection of the inspected hand is acceptable. The invention also relates to a method and a computer program product for operating the apparatus.