Advanced Input lands British deal

A Coeur d’Alene manufacturer recently landed an order from Britain’s national health agency for 7,500 keyboards it markets to hospitals to help prevent the spread of germs that cause infections.

The roughly $1.5 million deal is a boost for Advanced Input Systems. But the company has found U.S. hospitals less eager to adopt its Mediginic keyboards – which are flat, easy-to-clean and feature a blinking light reminding users to wash them – since it began selling them stateside more than a year ago, said Randy Noland, marketing director.

With Medicare cutting funding for hospital-acquired infections starting next year, however, the company foresees more hospitals keying in on its product.

The National Health Service bought the keyboards for use in hospitals across England as part of an ongoing effort to reduce hospital infections. British hospitals already had purchased about 10,000 of the devices, Noland said.

The keyboards cost about $200 to $240. They can be cleaned with hospital disinfectant, and a warning light flashes to remind users to wipe them; the blinking won’t stop until pressure and moisture sensors within the device registers cleaning.

No local hospitals have purchased the keyboards, but they’re used in Portland and Billings, Noland said.

Local hospitals may turn to alternatives. For instance, St. Luke’s Rehabilitation Institute in Spokane, part of the Inland Northwest Health Services network, uses plastic covers and has policies for cleaning and wiping them between patients and for daily cleaning, said INHS spokeswoman Nicole Stewart.

The Centers for Disease Control estimates 90,000 people die each year from infections obtained in hospitals – a number some advocacy groups call too low. Some states are considering legislation requiring reporting of such infections, especially in light of national attention to MRSA – methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus – last year.

In December, around the height of the MRSA scare in area schools, the company donated 25 of the keyboards to the Coeur d’Alene School District. That was enough for one at each school, where they were placed in central areas, such as libraries, said Jean Bengfort, director of technology. They’ve received mixed feedback.

“We weren’t sure that we could afford them,” she said. “It’s something that we probably wouldn’t deploy across the district.”

A wholly owned subsidiary of Bellevue, Wash.-based Esterline Technologies Corp., Advanced Input Systems employs about 350 in a West Wilbur Avenue manufacturing plant, where it assembles the keyboards. The company primarily makes custom electronic controls for medical devices.